Intolerance to uncertainty, psychological well-being levels and related factors in mothers with baby in the intensive care unit during the COVID-19 pandemic process

Objective: This research was carried out to examine the levels of intolerance of uncertainty and psychological well-being of mothers whose babies were hospitalized in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit during the COVID-19 pandemic. Material and Methods: The sample of the cross-sectional and descriptive study consisted of 321 mothers whose babies were hospitalized in the neonatal intensive care unit of Aydın Gynecology and Pediatrics Hospital between 01.06.2022 and 01.12.2022. Research data were obtained by using Socio-Demographical questions, Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale (IUS) and Psychological Well-Being Scale-Short Form (PWBS-SF). In the descriptive statistics of the data, mean, standard deviation, median minimum, maximum, frequency and ratio values were used. The distribution of variables was evaluated with the Kolmogorov Smirnov test. Normally distributed variables were determined by independent t test and ANOVA test; Variables that did not show normal distribution were also analyzed using the Man Whitney U and Kruskal Wallis tests. Sperman correlation and linear regression analyzes were used to determine the relationship between the variables and the strength of the relationship. The findings were evaluated at the 95% confidence interval at the 5% significance level. In all tests, the condition of determining the p value less than 0.05 was required for statistical significance (p<0.05). Results: The difference between the age, marital status, social security, education status, employment status, occupation, monthly income, family type, chronic disease status, number of children and the mean scores of the IUS of the mothers participating in the study were not found statistically significant (p>0, 05). Previous miscarriage status of the mothers, the status of being treated to have a child, the planned pregnancy status of the baby in the intensive care unit, the gender of the baby in the intensive care unit, the birth week of the baby, the place where the baby came to the intensive care unit, the status of being the person who will help in the care of the baby, and the status of the baby in the intensive care unit before. The difference between the status of being a baby and the mean IUS score was not found statistically significant (p>0.05). The difference between IUS scores and the length of stay in the intensive care unit was found to be statistically significant (p<0.05). The difference between IUS scores and mothers' mental states was found to be statistically significant (p<0.05). The difference between the mothers' age, marital status, having a chronic disease, number of children and the mean PWBS score was not found to be statistically significant (p>0.05). It was determined that there was a statistically significant difference between PWBS scores and social security (p<0.05). The difference between PWBS scores and educational status was found to be statistically significant (p<0.05). The difference between PWBS scores and working status was found to be statistically significant (p<0.05). It was determined that there was a statistically significant difference between PWBS scores and monthly incomes (p<0.05). The difference between PWBS scores and family structure was found to be statistically significant (p<0.05). The difference between the mothers' previous miscarriage, being treated to have a child, the sex of the baby in the intensive care unit, the week of birth of the baby, the place where the baby came to the intensive care unit, and the mean PWBS scores were not statistically significant (p>0.05). The difference between PWBS scores and planned pregnancy status of the baby in the intensive care unit was found to be statistically significant (p<0.05). It was found that the difference between the PWBS scores and the status of being someone to help in the care of the baby was statistically significant (p<0.05). It was found that the difference between the PWBS scores and the duration of the baby's stay in the intensive care unit was statistically significant (p<0.05). It was found that the difference between the PWBS scores and the mental states of the mothers was statistically significant (p<0.05). It was determined that there was a moderate negative correlation between the mothers' IUS and PWBS scores (p<0.001). Conclusion: It was determined that the mothers mostly faced the problem of not being able to see their children when they wanted to be in the intensive care unit while their babies were in the intensive care unit. Mothers feel very sad spiritually. It was determined that there was a moderate negative correlation between mothers' IUS and PWBS mean scores, and that as the mothers' intolerance to uncertainty increased, their psychological well-being levels decreased. Key Words: Baby, Intensive Care, Intolerance of uncertainty, Mother, Newborn, Psychological well-being.