Impact of Serial Bedside Video Calls on Stress Level in Parents of Infants Admitted to NICU

The NICU can be a stressful environment for new mothers and fathers irrespective of whether NICU stay was anticipated or not. Parental role alteration remains one of the major parental stressors. Our NICU practices family centered care, with efforts to reduce NICU associated stress by daily updates (via phone and in person/by bedside), encouraging parent-infant skin to skin as infant's clinical state permits, allowing physical touch of baby with hands to stimulate bonding, amongst other practices. Studies have looked at stress as well as psychological distress in relation with parental resilience in the NICU, but none have looked at stress level in NICU parents in relation to their infant's clinical status at the time of assessment while adding an intervention. Our study, to the best of our knowledge, will be the first to evaluate the impact of serial bedside video call w/audio feature to NICU parents, permitting audio interaction with their infant, with an interval assessment of parent's stress level.

Parents will be randomized into 2 groups. The parent/guardian designated at the time of initial enrollment/consenting will be asked to complete the forms at subsequent assessments and participate in the study intervention. Data collection will be at 3 points during an 8-week period. Parental assessment will be done when they are visiting their infant. Parents will receive the following questionnaires during the 3 assessments and Infant clinical severity score will be completed at all assessments by the research investigator.

Assessment 1 (7-10 days of life):

Socio-demographic sheet, MSPSS, PSS-NICU

Assessment 2 (14-21 days of life):

PSS-NICU

Assessment 3 (6-8 weeks of life):

MSPSS, PSS-NICU, STAI Y-1, STAI Y-2

Socio-demographic data

Infant Clinical severity Score: This quantifies the degree of infant clinical severity at the time of assessment for our study. This score is not intended to portray mortality or morbidity.

Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social support (MSPSS)

Parental stressor Scale- Neonatal Intensive Care unit (PSS-NICU) 3 subtype

State- Trait-Anxiety-Inventory Form Y-1 - is a well validated form used to measure one's anxiety state at a specific moment in time.

State- Trait-Anxiety-Inventory Form Y-2 - is a well validated tool that requires the individual to describe how they generally feel.

• Assess other contributing factors to parental stress such as anxiety. (Exploratory) [Time frame: From date of enrollment to date of last assessment, assessed up to 8weeks.]
• Parental anxiety state at discharge time (Exploratory) [Time frame: From date of enrollment to date of last assessment, assessed up to 8weeks.]
• Assess other contributing factors to parental stress such as perceived support system. (Exploratory) [Time frame: From date of enrollment to date of last assessment, assessed up to 8weeks.]
• Assess other contributing factors to anxiety such as change in the infant's clinical condition (Exploratory) [Time frame: From date of enrollment to date of last assessment, assessed up to 8weeks.]
• Assess other contributing factors to anxiety such as parental demographic factors and socioeconomic status. (Exploratory) [Time frame: From date of enrollment to date of last assessment, assessed up to 8weeks.]