Promoting effective communication in neonatal intensive care units by audiotaping doctor-parent conversations

Parents of newborn babies receiving intensive care may find it difficult to understand, remember and accept information. We evaluated how practical and useful it is to give parents a tape recording of their initial conversation with the neonatologist. They seem to benefit from being able to listen repeatedly to such recordings. Parents and nurses have similar scores of usefulness of the method but their score is significantly higher than that of the neonatologists. This method could be useful in other clinical situations.