A Qualitative Study on the Psychological Needs of Hospitalized Newborns’ Parents During COVID-19 Outbreak in China

As the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) emerged in China, the parents of hospitalized neonatal patients commonly endure more psychological stress compared to the general population, which probably originated from not staying with their children, inconvenience of daily life, and financial crisis.

We investigated the psychological needs of hospitalized newborns’ parents during the COVID-19 outbreak in Chongqing, China.

The phenomenological method was used to conduct this qualitative research. In-depth interviews were carried out on 14 parents of hospitalized newborns by the same interview based on a semi-structured interview outlines. The interviews were audiotaped, transcribed, and analyzed using Colaizzi’s 7-step analysis method.

All the subjects’ children were admitted to a neonatal ward within the first two weeks of initiating the first-level response to COVID-19 in Chongqing, China. The in-depth interviews identified five themes regarding the parents’ primary psychological needs, which included urgent demand for timely up-to-date information about the children’s condition, demand for psychological and emotional support, reducing the inconvenience caused by the epidemic outbreak, claim for protective information after discharge, demand for financial support.

Based on the parents’ needs, the medical staff should actively communicate with the parents, effectively provide emotional and financial support, and convenience. Such support could be helpful to relieve the parents’ psychological stress.