Experiences and coping strategies of preterm infants' parents and parental competences after early physiotherapy intervention: qualitative study

Background Birth before term is a stressful experience for parents because of the unexpected delivery or admission to the neonatal intensive care unit. Objective This research aimed to evaluate the impact of the early PT intervention on preterm infants' parents' experiences, and also to obtain knowledge about parents' experiences and perceived difficulties during preterm infants' care. Methods This qualitative study is based on the methods of phenomenology. In the first phase, open interviews were developed to allow researchers to immerse themselves in the context of the study and refine the questions for the semi-structured interviews. Data collected from the semi-structured interviews were analyzed through content analysis. Results The results were summarized around three themes: 1) parental competence; 2) difficulties during preterm infants' care; and 3) coping strategies. Each theme was divided into two sub-themes. Conclusion Mothers and fathers of preterm infants experienced difficulties when caring for their babies. Parents that received the early physiotherapy intervention felt empowered to take care of their babies and to enhance infants' development. These parents were more capable of developing coping strategies after the intervention. Parents that did not receive the early physiotherapy intervention expressed difficulties when caring for their preterm babies.