Parents’ experiences of transition when their infants are discharged from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: a systematic review protocol

Abstract

REVIEW QUESTION/OBJECTIVE The objective of this review is to identify, appraise and synthesize the best available studies exploring parents’ experiences of transition when their infants are discharged from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. The review questions are: 1. How do parents describe their preparedness for bringing their infant(s) home? 2. How do the parents experience the event of discharge? 3. What issues do the parents describe as influencing their transition experiences when the infant is discharged from a NICU to home? INCLUSION CRITERIA Types of participants This review will consider studies that include mothers, fathers, step-parents or foster parents of infants who are hospitalized in a neonatal intensive care unit regardless of civil status, ethnicity or country of origin. Types of intervention(s)/phenomena of interest This review will include studies that investigate how parents experience the discharge of their infant from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. The included studies should describe parents’ experiences of being prepared for the discharge and the event of the discharge. Transition in this study is defined as: “a passage from one fairly stable state to another fairly stable state and it is a process triggered by a change”. The focus of this review is infants’ discharge from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Context The context of this review is a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit defined as an intensive care unit of ill or premature and/or newborn infants. This review includes studies from all four classified levels for Neonatal Intensive Care Unit care TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS