Maternal Stress and Anxiety in the Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Unit.
Amy Jo Lisanti, Lois Ryan Allen, Lynn Kelly and 1 others
PMID 28249863WHAT IT FOUND
Mothers of infants after congenital heart surgery felt very anxious, especially in the first postoperative week and when they had other children.
Their biggest stressors were seeing their baby in pain and being unable to comfort or parent.
Key findings
01Mothers rated infant appearance and behavior as the highest stressor, and the strongest items involved infant pain and the mother's inability to comfort or parent the infant.
02Mothers felt more anxious in the moment than they usually do, and their usual anxiety plus altered parental role were the factors that predicted current anxiety.
03Mothers felt more anxious in the moment when they had more than one child and when their infant was less than 1 week after surgery.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The sample was mostly white, non-Hispanic, married, and well-educated, so it may not represent all families. Mothers were measured only once after surgery, so stress and anxiety may change during the hospital stay. Only mothers were included, so the study does not describe fathers or other caregivers. Only current anxiety was measured as a stress response, not other possible responses. The data were self-reported, with no objective measures of stress or anxiety. The design was correlational, so it cannot show that a stressor caused anxiety.
Declared interests
The study was supported by the National Institutes of Nursing Research, the National Institutes of Health/National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, and a grant from the Eta Beta Chapter of Sigma Theta Tau. No additional conflicts are reported.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that nurse-led education, screening, or holding will reduce maternal anxiety. The study measured mothers' stress and anxiety at one time after surgery and did not test any intervention.