| The perinatal period, a special susceptibility to negative emotions, is a period that women and their spouses have to face. At the same time, the fact that the neonates have to be hospitalized is no doubt a huge mental stress for their parents. Little understanding of the hospitalization environment, lacking awareness of neonatal diseases as well as concerns about the neonates" safety, can easily lead to negative emotions of parents. Under the influence of negative mood, parents could become irritable and impulsive, which may do harm to their physical and mental health, impact family harmony and even result in the ineffective communication with doctors, affecting the care for the neonates. Understanding the psychological status of parents with hospitalized neonates and working to reduce their stress levels, will not only be conducive to the improvement of neonates’quality of life, but might also help to maintain the harmony and stability of families and society as a whole.This study was designed to investigate anxiety and depression in parents of hospitalized neonates and analyze related factors of the bad emotions. Than according to the epidemiological characteristics of anxiety and depression, we gave integrated nursing support to parents of infants in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) to observe the effect of the interventions, so as to provide theoretical support for effective psychological interventions which could help to improve parents’ mental health. Research purposes1. Describe the status of anxiety and depression in parents of hospitalized neonates and explore their related factors.2. Evaluate the effect of integrated nursing intervention on alleviating anxious and depressive symptoms in parents of hospitalized infants inNICU.Content and methods1. Investigation stage:600parents of hospitalized neonates were investigated from January2011to July2011in the Department of Neonatology in a maternal and child health hospital in Nanjing by cross-sectional survey study using parents’ general information questionnaire (age, family, clinical data of neonates, etc), ZUNG Self-rating Anxiety Scale (SAS), ZUNG Self-rating Depressive Scale (SDS), Social Support Rating Scale (SSRS) and the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS).2. Intervention stage:randomized controlled trial.100parents with newborns hospitalized in NICU from July2011to December2011were randomly divided into two groups. The control group received routine care intervention, while the intervention group accepted integrated nursing support on the basis of routine care, including personalized information support, group support, emotional support, etc. The effect of interventions was evaluated by using the Self-rating Anxiety Scales (SAS) and Self-Rating Depressive Scale (SDS) to measure anxiety and depression in parents in one week and two weeks after the nursing intervention.Results1. Investigation part:(1) The SAS revealed that out of600parents,128cases (21.3%) reached anxious state, in which20%of fathers and24%of mothers met the criteria for anxiety. The overall score of anxiety in parents (40.73±10.59) was higher than that of Chinese normal population (29.78±10.01) with significant difference (P<0.01).(2) The SDS revealed that out of600parents,193cases (32.2%) reached depressive state and30.8%of fathers as well as35%of mothers reported possible clinical depression. Parents scored significantly higher on the clinical score for depression (44.34±13.44) compared with the Chinese national norm (33.46±8.55)(P<0.01).(3) The SSRS showed that scores for objective support (9.22±2.84), utilization of support (7.83±1.88) and total social support (39.67±7.19) were significantly lower than the Chinese norm (P<0.01).(4) The results of PSS showed that the pressure score of fathers was (14.16±6.53) while mother s’pressure score was(14.11±6.42).(5) The main related factors of anxiety and depression in parents of hospitalized neonates were parental objective social support and pressure level.2. Intervention part:(1) On1week after intervention, the anxiety score of intervention group (45.08±10.15) had no significant difference with that of the control group (46.10±10.72)(P=0.626>0.05).(2) On1week after intervention, the depression score of intervention group (45.02±11.13) had no significant difference with that of the control group (47.30±12.14)(P=0.330>0.05).(3) The anxiety score (37.94±8.86) was significantly decreased after2weeks’ integrated nursing support in the intervention group (P<0.01), and was significantly different with the score of anxiety in the control group (43.64±10.00)(P=0.003<0.01). (4) After intervention of two weeks, the depression score of parents in the intervention group (39.80±8.54) had no significant difference with that of the control group (43.42±11.41)(P=0.076>0.05). However, intervention group parents’ depression score was lower than before the intervention, the difference was statistically significant (P<0.01).Conclusions1. Anxiety and depression are widespread in parents of hospitalized neonates, and the levels of social support and perceived stress were the most important factors relating to these unexpected emotions. The less satisfactory social support and more psychological stress parents have, the more anxious and depressive symptoms they will suffer.2. The integrated nursing intervention could reduce the incidence of NICU parents" anxious and depressive symptoms, suggesting that nurses should be concerned about the emotional state and psychological needs of parents and give them positive as well as effective support in order to improve the mental health of parents with hospitalized neonates. Personalized support-based nursing interventi-ons have certain significance in clinical popularization. |
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