Family Based Intervention Case Study

Summary: This is a randomized, repeated measures intervention that used individualized, family-based approach and a multilevel design. The study purpose was to evaluate the impact of the short-term family-based intervention that supported preterm infants and their families, particularly the mothers, during the hospitalization and transition to home. The intervention aimed at “addressing the needs of parents and their high-risk infant, and improving parenting and family factors likely to affect infant development” (p.241). The theoretical base of this intervention was the transactional model that highlighted the crucial role of the caregiving environment for optimal child development, “particularly parental perceptions of the infant, caregiving …show more content…
The intervention lasted for two to eight weeks, with three to seventeen sessions, depending on the needs and hospitalization length. Each session took one to one-and-a-half hours. Data was collected at baseline and discharge to mothers, using the Demographics, Parental Stressor Scale: Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (PSS:NICU), Maternal Self-Report Inventory (MSRI), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Family Environment Scale (FES), and Demographic questions. The Clinical Interview For Parents of High-Risk Infants (CLIP) and Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS) demonstrations and observations were conducted before the intervention for individualized planning purpose. Videotaping was carried out with a sub-sample of 15 intervention and 15 control mother-infant pairs before discharge to investigate mother-infant bottle-feeding interactions. The results revealed decreased stress and depression rates in the intervention mothers together with higher self-esteem and more positive parent-infant feeding interactions, compared to the control. The intervention infants also had significantly less negative feeding behaviors, compared to the