International Perceptions: Family-Centered Care in the Rural Indian NICU

Research Objectives: To investigate the relationship between Family-Centered Care practices and the overall satisfaction of care received in a rural Indian NICU.

Design: The most vulnerable period of an infant's life is the first few days after birth (Pathirana et al., 2016). Indian mothers may only see their child once or twice per day while their child is in the NICU, which further delays the parent-child bond, and has the potential to delay later cognitive and emotional development (Pisoni et al., 2014).

Setting: Rural medical center and teaching hospital in western India.

Participants: Twenty-nine caregivers with infants admitted to the Pravara Institute of Medical Sciences NICU participated in this study. This convenience sample was collected from January 1 2024 through February 15 2024.

Interventions: The India NICU Family-Centered Care Survey, modified with the author's permission from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Caregiver Behavior Checklist (NICU-CBC) – Section 5: Family-Centered Care (A. Carroll et al., 2022) was used to gather demographic information and caregiver perceptions of care rated on a 5-point Likert scale. Questions were reviewed by professionals in the field within the United States and India for cultural relevance.

Main Outcome Measures: Questions were categorized into 3 groups: Therapeutic Communication; Education/Equipment; Promotion of Caregiver Involvement. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and correlational analysis.

Results: A positive correlation for all categories, with the highest correlation for promotion of caregiver involvement, r(27) = .75, p < .001, demonstrating that the results are statistically significant at the .01 level. Education/Equipment usage and Therapeutic Communication were also significantly correlated.
Total satisfaction scores mostly ranged from 40 – 50, on a scale from 11 – 55.

Conclusions: Caregivers with infants in the PIMS NICU reported high satisfaction levels with family-centered care provided by NICU therapists. Strong positive correlation between the promotion of caregiver involvement and the total satisfaction of care received in the NICU. Results suggest that Family-Centered Care that emphasizes caregiver involvement increases the overall satisfaction of the NICU experience. Several limitations were identified that should be considered and warrant further study. Limited applicability to broader Indian and international contexts due to rural setting. Reduced power due to small sample size. Indian family dynamic limits male caregiver perceptions. Participants' perceptions may differ in other settings. Varying dialects in the region may have caused a potential language barrier.

Author(s) Disclosures: No known disclosures of conflicts of interest by presenting or contributing authors.