EXTREMELY-LOW-BIRTH-WEIGHT
PRESCHOOL CHILD: MOTHERS’ EXPERIENCE OF CHILD-REARING
CHENG
Y-M1, LEE W-M2
1Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Hong Kong, China
2The Hong Kong Polytechnic
University, Hong Kong, China
Objectives: More extremely low
birth weight (ELBW, <1000gm) infants survive through childhood with
advances in perinatal and neonatal care, though most of them may have
subsequent medical and psychosocial problems requiring special attention
and care on returning home. Recovering from the stress in neonatal
intensive care unit (NICU), the mothers of these children will be facing
another transition upon resuming the full-time parental role in their own
homes. Studies have addressed to the stress and coping of parents in the
NICU and mothers’ solution in child-rearing for normal children
respectively. Little discussion has been made on the parents’ experience of
rearing an ELBW child at home during the preschool years.
Methods: This qualitative research
explores the lived experience of the Hong Kong Chinese mothers of ELBW
children during the preschool years. Confidential interactive interviews
are conducted to invited mothers who have established relationships of
trust with the researcher. Non-directive broad open-ended questions are
asked to allow in-depth descriptions of the experience and feelings in
total. All the interviews are audio taped and verbatim transcribed with the field
notes made after the interview to identify the non-verbal communication.
Data collection, coding and analysis are jointly conducted to allow the
initial analysis provide theoretical guide to the subsequent interviews.
Results & Conclusions: The
presentation will report the preliminary properties and categories emerged
from the data. Mothers’ stress and coping upon the child-rearing problems
and their help-seeking patterns will be discussed. The findings hopefully
will provide information for planning of community services including
healthcare and in particular nursing care for parents in pediatrics.