Family-Centered Care and the Inter-Hospital Transport of Critically Ill Neonates

Safe inter-hospital transfer of high-risk neonate is a part of hospital care. Due to the high rate of inter-hospital transport and the importance of family presence as a key element in infant care (family-centered care), this study aimed to determine the extent of carrying out family-centered care during the inter-facility transport of high risk neonates.

In this descriptive cross-sectional study, 150 parents of neonates transferred from the hospitals of the Mazandaran Province, Iran, to neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) of the only children's subspecialty center in this province, and 150 members of the neonatal transport team were selected using non-random sampling convenient method in 2018. The data were collected using a researcher-made questionnaire about the implementation of family-centered care during the inter-facility transport with 8 questions for transport team and 12 for parents with yes or no answer, and analyzed using SPSS software.

 88% of transport team members (132 case) and 66.7% of the parents (100 case) stated that family-centered care during the transport of neonates was desirable; and there was a significant difference between them (P = 0.001). In contrast, 30 parents (20%), 91 members of the transport team (60.7%) acknowledged that it was possible for the parents to make skin to skin contact during and before the transfer of the baby; the imbalance of responses in the parent group and transport team was significant, too (P = 0.001).</div>

Although from the viewpoint of most the members of the transport team and the parents, family-entered care during the inter-hospital transport was optimal, but both groups stated that the skin contact between the parents and the baby was not well provided; this need more education.