Preparing staff nurses to teach parents about newborn behavior

Area of Science:

• Nursing Education
• Neonatal Behavior
• Parent-Infant Communication

Background:

• Effective postpartum care requires nurses to understand complex newborn behaviors.
• Nurses play a crucial role in educating parents on interpreting infant cues.
• Existing training may not fully address the nuances of neonatal communication.

Purpose of the Study:

• To enhance postpartum nurses' understanding of newborn behavior.
• To equip nurses with skills to teach parents about recognizing and responding to infant cues.
• To evaluate the effectiveness of the Keys to Caregiving video series.

Main Methods:

• Utilized the Keys to Caregiving: Self-Instructional Video Series for training.
• Program completed by 18 maternal-child nurses.
• Pre- and post-testing to assess knowledge acquisition.

Main Results:

• Significant improvement in nurses' knowledge of newborn behavior observed.
• Average pre-test scores were 80%, increasing to 94% post-program.
• Nurses reported overwhelmingly positive experiences with the training program.

Conclusions:

• The Keys to Caregiving program effectively improved nurses' knowledge of newborn behavior.
• Enhanced nurse knowledge can facilitate better parent education on infant cues.
• The self-instructional video series is a valuable tool for neonatal nursing education.