Abstract
This prospective cohort study was conducted at our tertiary care center from October, 2021 to April, 2022 to compare the parents’ health-related quality of life (HRQoL) scores during neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) stay and at 3 months follow-up. Pediatric quality of life inventory (PedsQL) family impact module questionnaires were used in 46 mothers and 39 fathers during NICU stay, and 42 mothers and 38 fathers at 3-month follow-up. Greater proportions of mothers were severely affected and had higher stress levels as compared to fathers both during NICU stay (67.3% vs 48.7%) and at 3 months follow-up (62.7% vs 52.6%). Among the mothers, there was a significant improvement in individual and family functioning median (IQR) HRQL scores at 3-month follow-up [62 (48–83) vs 71(63–79)]. However, the proportion of mothers severely affected remained the same at NICU stay and 3-month follow-up (67.3% vs 62.7%).
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Institutional ethical committee of Fernandez Hospital; No. EC Ref No 41–2022, dated Oct 25, 2022.
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SH, PG, AS: collected and compiled the data for the study, and drafted the manuscript: SK: conceptualized and designed the study, and finalized the manuscript. TP, VV: provided intellectual inputs from the protocol stage and helped in drafting the paper. The final version of the manuscript was approved by all authors.
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Hafeez, S., Kiran, S., Gupta, P. et al. Quality of Life of Parents of Very Low Birth Weight Babies Admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Indian Pediatr 60, 317–319 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13312-023-2866-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13312-023-2866-1