Determination of the family empowerment status of mothers with premature babies in the neonatal intensive care unit and the experiences of nurses

This study has been designed as a descriptive mixed method study with a phenomenological case science pattern with cross-sectional analysis containing quantitative and qualitative methods in order to evaluate the family empowerment status of mothers with premature babies in the neonatal intensive care unit and the experiences of nurses in this regard. One hundred and four mothers whose infants had been admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care unit at the Etlik Zübeyde Hanım Gynecology Training and Research Hospital and 20 nurses working at this unit were included in the study. For the collection of the quantitative data, the mother-baby descriptive questionnaire and the Family Empowerment Scale were used. The qualitative data were collected through the questions in the qualitative interview questionnaire in the presence of an observer and the interviews were audio recorded.For the purposes of the study, the quantitative data were analyzed using the Shapiro- Wilk, Kolmogorov Smirnov, Mann Whitney U, Kruskal Wallis and Spearman Rho tests in the IBM SPSS V23 software. The analysis of the qualitative data was performed using the MAXQDA software. The statistical significance was set at a level of p<0.05. The median value of family empowerment was determined as 145 and positive, and the Cronbach's Alpha value of the scale was determined as 0.908. A high degree of positive correlation was found between the "Family Empowerment Scale" score and the "About Family" subscale, as well as the "Health Services Provided to the Child" subscale, and the "Participation in the Society" subscale. According to the qualitative results of the study, it was observed that the nurses were knowledgeable about the family empowerment approach, defined the concept of family empowerment as basic care training, providing breast milk pumping and breastfeeding training and psychological support in order to increase the bond between the mother and the infant. Some of the nurses stated that they had problems due to understaffing, the Covid-19 pandemic and the language barrier that emerged with refugee mothers.