Staff and parents are discriminators for outcomes in neonatal intensive care units

We investigated the associations between staff work characteristics, parents' experiences and a number of medical outcome measures.

This explorative multicentre study took place in the neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) of five German university hospitals between 2009 and 2011. We assessed staff work characteristics by surveying 126 NICU nurses and 57 physicians and asked 214 parents about their relationships with staff. The outcome variables of 230 premature infants with birth weights of less than 1500 g were collected over a period of 18 months. We used analysis of variance (ANOVA) and regression analyses for statistical purposes.

We found differences in outcome measures between the NICUs, particularly parameters of respiratory support, weight gain and length of stay. When we controlled for the NICUs' baseline factors, perceptions of the relationship between staff and parents (empathy, p < 0.001; conversation duration and frequency, p < 0.05; familiarity, p < 0.05) and staff work characteristics (workload, p < 0.05) were associated with at least one of these outcome measures.

Staff and parents were discriminators for neonatal outcomes through perceptions of work characteristics and the relationship between staff and parents, respectively. Respiratory support and nutrition measures were particularly sensitive. This research has prompted a nationwide, multicentre study of 66 NICUs.