The congruence of nurses' performance with developmental care standards in neonatal intensive care units

Many studies support the positive short and long-term developmental care for premature infants. This study aimed to determine the congruence of nurses' activity in four areas of developmental care in order to obtain basic information for authorities to provide a program to achieve related standards in the future.

The study was performed on 70 nurses working in neonatal intensive care units in Tabriz, Iran. Nurses answered to a questionnaire retrieved from Robison's developmental program. Content validity and reliability (Cronbach's alpha) of translated version were evaluated. Data were analysed using SPSS.

The mean (standard deviation) of total score was 3.06 (0.44). It was 3.02 (0.50) for individualized care, 3.01 (0.63) for appropriate development environment for the child and family, 3 (0.46) in supporting family relationship and approving the relationship between infant and family and 3.22 (0.56) for collaboration among all care factors. Score 4 was considered as completely meet standards. Therefore, a mean of 3.20 and above was considered as observance higher than 80% and was favorable. The Friedman test showed statistically significant difference among the activities related to the four areas (p = 0.001). The collaboration field had the highest mean score and providing services in this field had more congruence with the related standard of developmental care.

The study showed that the congruence of nurses' performance with standards of developmental care still requires more efforts. Therefore, it is necessary to train the staff in this regard and prepare them for structural and functional facilities.