Nursing intervention of mothers with premature infants

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Publication Type thesis
School or College College of Nursing
Department Nursing
Author Asay, Marilyn Jones
Contributor Leitch, Cynthia
Title Nursing intervention of mothers with premature infants
Date 1969-08
Description Nurses involved in maternal child health have expressed concern regarding mothers and their premature infants. Hospital policies have been modified to allow mothers to feed their premature infants after they have been removed from the Isolette. However, studies have been done which indicated that the mother's concern in caring for and handling her baby extended above and beyond the problem of establishing feeding patterns. The intent of the present study was to determine if special nursing intervention provided by the nurse, in allowing the mother to practice caring for her baby under supervision before leaving the hospital, would decrease the mother's anxiety and increase the baby's general health and well-being. This seemed to be an appropriate way of bridging the gap experienced by the mother of a premature infant due to the resulting separation period because of the baby's retention in the hospital after the mother's discharge. The method employed in an attempt to answer the question was to obtain a sample of mothers who had delivered premature infants. The mothers were divided into an experimental and a control group. The experimental mothers received special assistance from the researcher which brought them together in the hospital on the infant's day of discharge. The mother bathed, dressed and fed her baby and the researcher offered suggestions and elementary information concerning the infant. The control mothers received no special assistance from the nurse. Seven to ten days after the mother had taken her baby home, a public health nurse made a home visit. The nurse assessed the health of the baby on a special rating scale and the mother filled out a scale which rated her emotional equilibrium. Statistical analyses were done using an independent t_ test to correlate the scores of the two groups of mothers. The same kind of test was performed to correlate the baby's scores. The level of significance was greater than .10 on the F table for both correlations showing an insignificant difference. The public health nurse rank-ordered the mothers from most anxious" to "least anxious" and the babies from "most healthy" to "least healthy." A Mann-Whitney U test was performed. These results again were insignificant at the .10 level. A significant correlation (p<.05 level) was obtained when the mother's anxiety score was correlated with the baby's health rating. In other words, the most anxious mothers had the least healthy babies. Replication of the study is recommended using a larger sample of mothers. Special assistance provided over a longer time period might show a significant difference in the rating scale scores. A revision of the baby's scale may also be necessary.
Type Text
Publisher University of Utah
Subject Mother-Child; Anxiety
Subject MESH Infant, Premature; Pediatric Nursing
Dissertation Institution University of Utah
Dissertation Name MS
Language eng
Relation is Version of Digital reproduction of "Nursing intervention of mothers with premature infants." Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library. Print version of "Nursing intervention of mothers with premature infants." available at J. Willard Marriott Library Special Collection. RJ25.5 1969 .A853.
Rights Management © Marilyn Asay Jones.
Format Medium application/pdf
Format Extent 297,964 bytes
Identifier undthes,4996
Source Original: University of Utah Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library (no longer available).
Master File Extent 298,001 bytes
ARK ark:/87278/s64x59jv
Setname ir_etd
ID 190597
Reference URL https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s64x59jv