Handling of preterm infants in a neonatal intensive care unit

Abstract

While hospitalized in neonatal units, preterm infants undergo various manipulations and procedures that have negative health consequences. The aim of this study was to describe the manipulations that preterm infants are subjected to over a 24-hour period in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). An observational, descriptive, exploratory study was conducted with 20 preterm infants who were filmed continuously in a NICU over a 24-hour period from September 2008 to March 2009. Preterm infants were subjected to an average of 768 manipulations and 1341 procedures. The average duration of the manipulations over the 24-hour period was 2 hours and 26 minutes. Each manipulation included an average of 2.2 procedures, most occurring during the morning shift. Individual manipulations accounted for 65.6% of all manipulations, and most manipulations lasted less than a minute. The results of this study show that preterm infants in the NICU underwent an excessive number of manipulations over the 24-hour period evaluated.