Maternal perceptions of family-centred support and their associations with the mother-nurse relationship in the neonatal intensive care unit

Aims and objectives: To evaluate maternal perceptions of family-centred support with hospitalised preterm infants and their relationship between mothers and nurses in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Background: Mothers who gave birth to preterm infants tend to suffer more stress and need individual support based on family-centred care. However, there may be a shortage of support for mothers to obtain parent-crafting skills before bringing their infants home. DesignThis cross-sectional study used path analysis and multiple group analysis to evaluate a structural equationmodel of the relationship between maternal perception based on family-centred support in parent-crafting training and the mothers-nurses collaboration. Methods: We analysed data from 98 mothers (valid response proportion, 41.0%) whose infants were hospitalised in the NICU of two types of perinatal centres in Japan. We used three revised standardised questionnaires in Japanese: Measure of Process of Care in the NICU (Neo-MPOC 20), Enabling Practice Scale in the NICU (Neo-EPS) and the author-developed Mother and Infant Questionnaire. Results: Path analysis revealed that the relationship between mothers and nurses was linked to three factors related to the perinatal centres' support: consideration of parents' feelings, ability to deal with specific needs and coordination in dealing with situations that interact with provision of parent-friendly visual information. Separate path analyses for each perinatal centre showed the same pattern, although the standard coefficients were different. Conclusions: Maternal perceptions of family-centred support with hospitalised preterm infants promoted better collaboration between mothers and nurses to obtain parent-crafting skills at two types of perinatal units in Japan. Relevance to clinical practice: Clear visual information materials might promote better maternal understanding of their infants, help in acquisition of parent-crafting skills and improve mother-nurse collaboration, with the result that mothers are better able to care for their infants autonomously at home.