Immigrant and minority parents' experiences in a neonatal intensive care unit: A meta-ethnography review.
Suza Trajkovski, Mahmoud A Al-Dabbas, Shanti Raman and 3 others
PMID 39177302WHAT IT FOUND
Immigrant and minority parents described feeling useless, guilty and out of place in the NICU.
Family, spiritual practices, culturally matched peer support, and staff warmth helped them cope. Language barriers and rare nurse-parent interpreting left parents anxious and staff frustrated.
Key findings
01Immigrant and minority parents described feeling useless as parents and not belonging in the NICU.
02Parents reported family, spiritual practices, and culturally and linguistically matched peer support as ways to cope with NICU stress.
03Language barriers and rare use of interpreters for nurse-parent interactions left parents anxious and staff frustrated.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
Only eight studies were included, and the authors say the pool of studies was low. Only English full-text articles were included, so experiences from other languages and settings may be missing. Most studies were from Canada and the United States, so findings may not fit other health systems or cultures. The review included healthcare professionals' perspectives as well as parents', so findings are not only parent voices. This is a synthesis of experiences, not a trial of interventions.
Declared interests
The authors declare no conflicts of interest. Funding came from Western Sydney University Early Career Research funding.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the reported benefits of peer support, interpreters, or cultural accommodations as proof that they improve NICU outcomes. This review synthesises parents' and staff's experiences, not measured effects of interventions.