Development of a Support System for Parents of Premature Infants

[Background]The concept of family-centered care is increasingly being recognized at the international level.[Objectives]Development of a support system for parents of premature infants (PPI), based on family-centered care and scientific evidences.[Methods]The method is based on four key steps. 1) Explaining parents’ needs, including comprehensive review of quantitative studies, meta-synthesis of qualitative studies conducted in Iran by search of Iranian databases (IranMedex, Magiran, and SID) and international resources (PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar) and comparative study. 2) A comprehensive review to identify effective interventions in supporting PPI and ranking interventions. 3) Designing a model to support PPI. 4) Evaluating designed system for supporting the PPI.[Results]The results of this study identified five critical steps which the PPI experienced and 14 effective interventions to support them. Preconception: care before the next pregnancy; prenatal: preparing parents to see their baby for the first time, supporting parents in breastfeeding (BF), kangaroo care (KC) and infant massage; neonatal: spiritual self-care, individualized behavioral and developmental care programs, using scales to assess infantʹs behavior, supporting parents in BF, KC and infant massage, support forums for parents, relieving parents’ stress, sharing information and communication, family nurture interventions, supporting parents in transferring between neonatal units (NU), facilitating collaborative care in NU; discharge: discharge planning, support forums for parents, sharing information and communication and home: home support programs, individualized behavioral and developmental care programs, supporting parents in BF, KC and infant massage. Support forums for parents, sharing information and communication.[Conclusions]Our proposed system provides a parent-centered system which can be implemented to provide high-quality care for PPI.