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Psychosocial parental support programs and short-term clinical outcomes in extremely low-birth-weight infants

Graciela B Nearing1, Ariel A Salas, Deise Granado-Villar

  • 1Department of Psychiatry, Miami Children's Hospital, Miami, FL 33155, USA. gnearing@mindspring.com

The Journal of Maternal-Fetal & Neonatal Medicine : the Official Journal of the European Association of Perinatal Medicine, the Federation of Asia and Oceania Perinatal Societies, the International Society of Perinatal Obstetricians
|March 4, 2011
PubMed

Insights

Individualized psychosocial parental support (PPS) in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) may reduce length of stay for extremely low-birth-weight infants. Further research is needed to confirm these findings.

Area of Science:

  • Neonatal Medicine
  • Pediatrics
  • Psychosocial Support

Background:

  • Extremely low-birth-weight (ELBW) infants require intensive care, often leading to prolonged hospital stays.
  • Parental well-being is crucial during neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) hospitalization.
  • The impact of targeted psychosocial support on clinical outcomes for ELBW infants is an area of ongoing research.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the association between an individualized psychosocial parental support (PPS) program and short-term clinical outcomes for ELBW infants.
  • To determine if parental participation in a PPS program influences the length of stay (LOS) for ELBW infants in the NICU.

Main Methods:

  • Retrospective review of medical records for ELBW infants (<1000 g) admitted to the NICU.
  • Inclusion criteria: outborn infants admitted within 72 hours of life and discharged home.
  • Comparison of neonatal outcomes between parents who participated in the PPS program and those who did not.

Main Results:

  • The study included 41 ELBW infants with a mean gestational age of 26.7 weeks and birth weight of 860 g.
  • Parents of 33.3% of infants received individualized psychosocial parental support.
  • Infants whose parents participated in the PPS program had a significantly shorter median length of stay (86 days) compared to the control group (99 days; p<0.05).

Conclusions:

  • Individualized psychosocial parental support, when added to standard NICU care, may reduce the length of stay for surviving ELBW infants discharged home.
  • The findings suggest a potential benefit of psychosocial interventions for families with ELBW infants.
  • Larger, randomized prospective studies are recommended to validate these results and further explore the impact of PPS programs.
Abstract

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