Joo, Lim Chien
Parents’ stress level at Neonatal Intensive
Care Unit Hospital USM.
Project Report.
Universiti Sains Malaysia.
(Submitted)
Abstract
Medically fragile infants are born into families regardless of races,
religious, cultural background, socio economical status and nationality. The undesirable
and unexpected event of having own child admitted to Neonatal Intensive Care Unit
(NICU) causes stress to parents that is characterized by uncertainty and fear. This study
aims to assess the level of stress among parent whose infant admitted to NICU and
factors contributing to parental stress.
A cross-sectional, descriptive study was conducted in 104 respondents whose
infant admitted to NICU Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia using convenience sampling
method. Respondents were surveyed using a structured self-administered questionnaire.
The questionnaire consisted 26 questions and respondents evaluated each questions on a
five- point Likert scale. Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics version 20.0. Chi-
Square test and Fisher’s Exact Test were used to analyze the data. A p-value of equal or
less than 0.05 was considered significant. 104 respondents participated in this study. Respondents generally reported low
(60.6%) to moderate (36.5%) level of stress when their infant admitted to NICU. Mothers
perceived higher level of stress than fathers when their child admitted to NICU by
showing significant difference with p-value of 0.002. Although there was no significant
association between educational level and overall stress of parents (p= 0.280), there was
significant mean difference between educational level and parental stress on subscales of
infant appearance and behavior (p= 0.010). On the other hand, there was no significant
association between gestational age and stress experienced by parents of infant admitted
to NICU with p-value 0.204. There was also no significant difference between length of
stay and stress of parents when their infant admitted to NICU (p= 0.180). The results warrant a need to increase awareness of health care providers
especially for nurses towards stress of parents. Health care professionals must be attuned
to individual differences of parents and be alert of likelihood for gender differences in
stress responses between fathers and mothers. Good communication skill is also important as effective communication helps to relieve parental stress, too. It is essential
to remove sources of parental stress that ultimately impaired parent infant bonding and
lead to child vulnerability in future.
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