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Clinical Practice Protocol of Creative Music Therapy for Preterm Infants and Their Parents in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit
Published on: January 7, 2020
Audio recordings of consultations with doctors for parents of critically sick babies
Insights
Providing parents in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) with audiotapes of doctor conversations showed no proven benefits in available trials. More research is needed to determine the effectiveness of this communication tool for family-centered care.
Area of Science:
- Neonatal intensive care
- Medical communication
- Family-centered care
Background:
- Family-centered care is vital in neonatal intensive care.
- Effective communication in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) is challenging but essential for family-centered care.
- Audiotape recordings of neonatologist consultations may enhance parent-provider communication.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the utility of providing audiotape recordings of consultations to parents of infants in the NICU.
Main Methods:
- A comprehensive literature search was conducted using the Cochrane Neonatal Review Group's strategy.
- Searches included major electronic databases (MEDLINE, CENTRAL) and cross-referenced previous reviews.
- Eligibility criteria focused on randomized or quasi-randomized trials examining audiotape recordings for NICU parents.
Main Results:
- No trials were identified that met the inclusion criteria for this review.
- The searches yielded no studies assessing the impact of audiotape recordings on parent-provider communication in the NICU.
Conclusions:
- Currently, there is no evidence from randomized or quasi-randomized trials to support the benefits of providing audiotape recordings to parents in the NICU.
- The effectiveness of audiotape recordings as a communication aid in the NICU remains undetermined due to a lack of supporting research.
Background:
Family centred care is an important part of neonatal intensive care. Ensuring effective communication in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) is a challenge but is crucial to the implementation of family centred care. Providing parents in NICU with audiotape recordings of their conversations with neonatologists could promote effective communication.
Objectives:
The objective of this review was to assess the usefulness of providing parents of sick babies with audiotape recordings of their consultations with neonatologists.
Search Strategy:
The standard search strategy of the Cochrane Neonatal Review Group was used. This included searches of electronic databases: Oxford Database of Perinatal Trials, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL, The Cochrane Library Issue 3, 2004), and MEDLINE (1966 - February 2004); and previous reviews including cross references and expert informants. There were no language restrictions applied to the electronic searches. Hand searching of conference and symposia proceedings was restricted to the English language.
Selection Criteria:
Randomised or quasi-randomised trials of any form of providing parents of babies in NICU with audiotape recordings of their conversation with doctors in the NICU.
Data Collection And Analysis:
Four reviewers independently assessed the eligibility of the trials.
Main Results:
Our searches did not identify any trials which met the eligibility criteria.
Authors' Conclusions:
There is no information available from randomised or quasi-randomised trials to demonstrate any benefits from providing parents in NICU with audiotape recordings of their conversations with neonatologists.
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