Perception of mothers admitted to NICU infants: influence of maternal, contextual variables, social support and coping

Abstract

The Health Psychology emerged as a proposal for a new understanding of health and the processes involved. Associated with it, the Pediatric Psychology can be defined as the application of the knowledge of the Health Psychology to the newborn and child. The growth of this area can be attributed to technological advances and medicals who have to guarantee the survival of babies, specifically, premature and very premature. Among these advances is the neonatal intensive care unit that houses the newborn in the first few hours of life, if they need special care for their survival. The hospitalization affects parents and family, resulting in a restructuring of family dynamics, different from the expected to the baby's arrival. Among the consequences of this condition are the emotional changes, especially mothers, who have gone through breaks expectations and have more difficulties to return the balance of the body. The presence of these emotional indicators demonstrates the difficulty of these mothers face the hospitalization. This project aims to investigate the perception that mothers of babies admitted to NICUs have about this condition and associate perception to anxiety indicators, depression, maternal stress, social support received by them and their coping strategies. Involving 50 mothers of infants hospitalized in NICU for at least three days. For data collection will be drawn up a protocol to describe the maternal perception, based on survey data in the area. Shall be used, for the assessment of maternal emotional health Perceived Stress Scale, the Inventory of State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and the Beck Depression. For the evaluation of coping will be applied to Range Mode Problems Confronting. Social support will be assessed by the Scale of Social Support (EAS). Mothers of babies admitted to NICU Maternity Santa Isabel, the city of Bauru / SP, in the period January-December 2017 will be invited to participate in this project, if accepted and complied with the ethical procedures, respond to the collection instruments data. Expected to reach the minimum number of 50 participants. The data obtained from the instruments will be described using descriptive and inferential statistics. Associations between maternal perception of the hospitalized baby will be conducted on maternal emotional health, social support and coping strategies. As for the results expected positive relationship between favorable perception of the baby's condition with less maternal emotional health indicators, more social support and coping strategies most appropriate and realistic. (AU)