Abstract
Introduction. Premature infants undergo a lot of stressful procedures during care and treatment procedure, which may lead to weight changes. Multisensory stimulation is a broad classification of interventions designed to improve the developmental and physiological outcomes of preterm infants admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of multisensory stimuli on weight gain in preterm infants admitted to the NICU. Materials and methods. This study was a two-group randomized controlled trial (multisensory stimulation and control group). Forty preterm infants admitted to the NICU who met the inclusion criteria were selected. The intervention method was a multisensory stimulation program including auditory stimulation, tactile stimulation, visual stimulation and vestibular stimulation, which were performed by the researcher for 12 min (each stimulation lasting for 3 min). The infant nutrition was monitored and recorded during the intervention and the infant’s weight was measured after changing diapers every morning for a 7 days. It was conducted in the two groups using a calibrated scale of confirmed validity and reliability. Data were analyzed using SPSS 20 software, paired t-test and independent t-test. Results. Based on the findings of the present study, an upturn was observed in weight gain of preterm infants as a result of multisensory intervention. This indicates that the intervention improves weight gain in premature infants. Conclusions. Since premature infants are usually hospitalized in the NICU for a long time due to their low weight and poor physical condition, they are mostly cared by nurses. Hence, considering its positive outcomes, besides specialized care, this effective and very low cost method could be used by nurses to promote weight gain and early discharge of preterm infants.
Highlights
Premature infants undergo a lot of stressful procedures during care and treatment procedure, which may lead to weight changes
REC.1398.102), a letter of introduction from the School of Nursing and Midwifery and permission from the officials of Amir Al-Momenin Hospital in Zabol, we studied premature infants admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) of Amir Al-Momenin Hospital Zabol city who met the inclusion criteria
The study of Majella et al (2014) on the impact of tactile and auditory stimulation on rapid weight gain in premature infants induced showed that premature infants receiving tactile and auditory stimulation experienced higher weight gain than premature infants in the control group [27], which is consistent with the findings of the present study
Summary
Premature infants undergo a lot of stressful procedures during care and treatment procedure, which may lead to weight changes. Multisensory stimulation is a broad classification of interventions designed to improve the developmental and physiological outcomes of preterm infants admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of multisensory stimuli on weight gain in preterm infants admitted to the NICU. Based on the findings of the present study, an upturn was observed in weight gain of preterm infants as a result of multisensory intervention. This indicates that the intervention improves weight gain in premature infants. Considering its positive outcomes, besides specialized care, this effective and very low cost method could be used by nurses to promote weight gain and early discharge of preterm infants. One of the most common problems in infants is low birth weight, which is a key indicator of Article History: Received: 27 January 2021 Accepted: 20 February 2021
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