Effects of Empowering Mothers of Premature Infants on Their Stress Coping Strategies

Background: Premature infants experiencemany problems during their stay in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Premature birth creates a sense of loss in family members, especially mothers, and causes tension and stress. Moreover, inefficient coping strategies increase stress, incompatibility, and mental problems. Objectives: In the current study, we aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of an empowerment program of stress coping strategies for mothers of preterm infants, admitted to the NICU. Methods: This clinical trial was performed on 70 mothers of premature infants, divided into the intervention and control groups. The empowerment program included 4 stages of behavioral training: first stage, 2 - 4 days after the infant’s hospitalization; second stage, 2 - 4 days after the first stage; third stage, 1 - 3 days before the infant’s discharge; and fourth stage, 1 week after discharge. At each stage, the mothers listened to an audio file related to the corresponding stage. The control group received information and routine care according to the hospital policies. To assess the stress-coping strategies, mothers completed a questionnaire once before the program and once before the infant’s discharge. To analyze the data, Chi square test, t test, and paired t test were used in SPSS version 16. Results: The results showed a significant difference between the groups in terms of the mean score of problem-focused coping (P < 0.2), emotion-focused coping (P < 0.003), and inefficient coping (P < 0.1) after the implementation of the empowerment program. This led to the increased use of problem-focused coping strategies and reduced use of emotion-focused and inefficient strategies in the empowerment group, although no significant difference was observed versus the controls (P > 0.05). Conclusion: Implementation of the empowerment program for mothers of premature infants increased the use of problemfocused coping and reduced the use of emotion-focused and inefficient coping strategies.