Care opportunities for premature infants: home visits and telephone support.
Rosane Meire Munhak da Silva, Adriana Zilly, Eliana Roldão Dos Santos Nonose and 2 others
PMID 32609266WHAT IT FOUND
Mothers of preterm infants described needing help with feeding, bathing, illness signs, and navigating referrals.
They reported home visits and phone or text contact from a researcher with neonatal nursing experience as helpful for guidance and support.
Key findings
01Home visits allowed concrete guidance on bathing, holding, and feeding intervals for the preterm infant.
02Phone or text contact was used to address immediate concerns such as diaper dermatitis, fever, and nasal congestion.
03Home visits revealed that some children were not in outpatient follow-up and that the family health unit was not accompanying the family at home.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The paper states 18 mothers were included, but it also says one refused and labels participants P1 to P18, so the final analysed count is unclear. It is a single-site qualitative study in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, so the themes may not transfer to other health systems. Only mothers were interviewed. Other family members were sometimes present but did not take part. The study did not measure infant outcomes, complications, readmissions, or whether the guidance improved care. The lead author both delivered the contacts and analysed the data, which may shape what was recorded and interpreted. Follow-up stopped around six months, while the paper notes later difficulties may arise. There was no comparison group, so the study cannot show that home visits or phone support caused better care.
Declared interests
The paper says it was extracted from a doctoral dissertation presented to Universidade de São Paulo, Escola de Enfermagem de Ribeirão Preto, PAHO/WHO. No other funding or conflict-of-interest statement is provided in the supplied text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as proof that home visits or phone support improve preterm infant health. The study combined home visits, phone calls, and text messages, and it did not measure infant outcomes or compare groups, so the contribution of any single component cannot be separated.