COVID-19 lockdown impacts the wellbeing of parents with infants on a Dutch neonatal intensive care unit.
Naomi Meesters, Monique van Dijk, Fernanda Sampaio de Carvalho and 4 others
PMID 34642075WHAT IT FOUND
During Dutch NICU lockdown, parents reported high stress, especially being separated from their infant and unable to visit with their partner.
Parents also missed siblings and other visitors. Only half reported good or excellent closeness to their infant.
Key findings
01Parents rated current stress on a 0 to 10 scale; the median for NICU hospitalization was 8 and for COVID-19 was 6.
02Most parents rated not being able to be with their infant limitlessly (15, 68%) and not being with their partner (14, 64%) as very to extremely stressful.
03Talking about the situation, mainly with the partner, was mentioned as most effective for coping by 9 mothers and 3 fathers.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
Only parents of 22 infants agreed to take part out of 48 eligible, a 46% response rate, so the views may not represent all NICU parents. There was no comparison group before restrictions, so stress from NICU admission could not be separated from stress from COVID-19 restrictions. The stress visual analogue scale was not validated. One PSS:NICU item was missing online and the subscale score was recalculated by multiplying by 7/6. Postnatal age at completion ranged from 8 to 88 days, so parents were asked at different points in the stay. Only Dutch-reading parents were included, and results are from one Dutch NICU. The study did not follow families after discharge, so long-term consequences were unknown.
Declared interests
The authors declared no competing interests. The supplied text does not name a funding source.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as proof that lockdown restrictions caused long-term damage to parent-infant bonding. It is a small cross-sectional survey with no comparison group, so it cannot separate stress from NICU admission from stress from the restrictions, and it did not follow families after discharge.