A qualitative study of recorded telephone support calls with mothers of preterm infants: Expressing both positive and negative feelings.
Anna Jonsson, Magdalena Jakobsson, Jenny Ericson
PMID 34337890WHAT IT FOUND
Mothers of preterm infants used support calls to express anxiety, frustration, joy and pride, often about stomach problems and breastfeeding.
Open questions, summaries and validation helped them tell their story; closed questions and unfamiliar callers made calls harder.
Key findings
01Open questions often produced detailed answers and more information that support team members could follow up on.
02Mothers expressed negative feelings such as anxiety and frustration, and positive feelings such as joy and pride.
03Some calls were difficult when support team members did not know the mother or her history, and the mother was disturbed by that.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
Only breastfeeding mothers were included, and only proactive calls made by the support team were recorded. The calls were anonymous, so no background information on the mothers could be reported. The analysis covered 19 convenience calls, not all calls from the trial, and the paper does not state how many mothers were represented. The study describes conversation structure and topics. It does not test whether the calls changed stress, empowerment, readmission or infant outcomes. Support team members had only two days of training, and the paper does not know their prior person-centred care experience.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflict of interest. The supplied article metadata lists research support, non-U.S. government.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that proactive telephone support calls reduce maternal anxiety or improve infant outcomes. This paper analysed recorded calls and reports how they were structured and what mothers said. It did not test an effect.