Mother's perception of infant hospitalization in neonatal intensive care units: A qualitative study

Birth of a premature infant can create emotional crisis for the mothers and encounter them with a variety of problems. The purpose of this study was to identify the perception of mothers with premature infants hospitalized in the neonatal intensive care units (NICU).
This was a qualitative study. In all 25 mothers were selected through purposive sampling, and a face-to-face semi structured interview was conducted with each participant. For the analysis of the data, the content analysis was applied containing verbatim transcription, reading interviews several times to obtain a sense of the whole, division of the text into meaning units and coding them, categorization of the codes into sub- categories and categories, and finally formulation of the latent content into categories.
In general, 2 categories and 5 sub-categories were identified. Categories encompass the followings: ‘living with tension, and ‘empowerment’. Living with tension has 2 sub-categories consisting of ‘fear of future’ and ‘damage to family’. Empowerment has 3 sub-categories consisting of ‘seeking for learning of unknowns’, ‘participation in treatment’ and ‘preparation for discharge’.
Understanding of mothers’ premature infant’s perceptions can help health care team to provide better services.