Family Presence Restrictions and Telemedicine Use in Neonatal Intensive Care Units during the Coronavirus Disease Pandemic

Abstract

We aimed to describe parental presence policy and telemedicine use in Japanese neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) before and during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. This cross-sectional study was performed through an online survey in 110 level III units from 19 November 2020 to 18 December 2020. Nurses’ evaluation of the current situation (during COVID-19) was compared with their retrospective pre-COVID-19 (December 2019) evaluation. Responses were received from 52 NICUs distributed across all regions in Japan. The median allowed parental presence time decreased from 12 h to 1 h, and 29 NICUs allowed entry of parents simultaneously during COVID-19. There was an increase in the number of units providing telemedicine through telephone and online visits during COVID-19 compared to that before COVID-19 (from 2% to 19%). The hybrid design NICUs, with 11–89% of beds in single-patient rooms, allowed a longer parental presence time in the NICUs than those with ≥90% of beds in multi-bed rooms. The number of units implementing kangaroo care decreased during COVID-19 compared to that before COVID-19. The need for telemedicine increased among Japanese NICUs to mitigate the adverse effect of parental restriction and limited physical contact due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords

• NICU design
• hospital restriction policy
• neonatal intensive care unit
• parent
• telemedicine