Campus Location

Dallas Campus (Online)

Date of Award

10-2021

ORCID

https://orcid.org/

0000-0002-2188-1084

Document Type

DNP Project

Department

Nursing

Degree Name

Doctor of Nursing Practice

Committee Chair or Primary Advisor

Lynn McClellan

Second Committee Member or Secondary Advisor

Donna R. Atobajeaun

Third Committee Member or Committee Reader

Faisal Aboul-Enein

Abstract

Abstract

The neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) are highly operational and highly active environments. Health care workers must react quickly to care for patients and provide life-saving measures fundamental to favorable patient outcomes. Caregivers of this critical patient population are often overlooked as the healthcare team prioritizes patient’s needs. In addition, medical equipment, machines, and monitors have multiple safety alarms sounding frequently and contributing to high levels of parental stress upon their child’s admission to the NICU and PICU. Lack of giving adequate prominence to the value of caregiver support services in the hospital milieu has been identified as a professional concern in many healthcare settings. Furthermore, many of these programs were suspended in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and in some settings continue to be interrupted. This study aims to evaluate the insights of caregivers who received and did not receive caregiver wellness services and the impact of these services on their stress levels during their child’s NICU or PICU stay. These stress levels were evaluated using a parent survey tool. These survey results did reveal that parents experienced a decrease in their stress level after receiving stress-reducing techniques provided by caregiver wellness programs in the hospital setting. These findings provide nurse leaders with implications for nursing regarding the importance of communicating the merits of structured caregiver support programs to policymakers and championing caregiver well-being.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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