Maternal Stress and Sleep of Hospitalized Children: The Effects of a Using Video Call Intervention to Improve Family-Centered Care

Stress and anxiety in the parents and caregivers can prevent the mother from adapting to the hospital environment and supporting her child. In fact, any disturbance in the behavior of parents, including the mother, can have a negative effect on their child's sleep. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of using video call intervention on improving family-centered care and its effect on maternal stress and subsequent child sleep.

In this clinical trial, 40 parents with hospitalized children were selected and randomly assigned to the control and intervention groups. For the fathers in the intervention group, a supportive training program included teaching parental plans and methods of child and mother support to fathers during the illness, as well as part of the program included the role of counseling and support of the nurse, which was done virtually. After performing the training virtually and visually, the father established a video communication with the child and his mother online as the primary caregiver. Data collection tools were a demographic information questionnaire, Stress Response Inventory, and Brief Infant Sleep Questionnaire-Revised, which was completed by the mother before and 7 days after the intervention.

The mean changes in mothers' stress scores and children's sleep showed a statistically significant difference between the intervention and control groups using an independent t-test (P <0.05). There was also a significant relationship between mothers' stress scores and children's sleep (P <0.05).

Planning and maintaining family unity during the COVID-19 pandemic and educating and supporting fathers, including the supportive role of spouses by reducing mothers' stress, can also affect the sleep of hospitalized children with pneumonia.