Effectiveness of Creating Opportunities for Parent Empowerment (COPE) on Stress, Anxiety, Coping and Competence among Mothers of Hospitalized Preterm Neonates in NICU: A Systematic Review Protocol

Abstract

This review aims to evaluate the effectiveness of Creating Opportunities for Parent Empowerment COPE on stress anxiety coping and competence among the mothers of preterm neonates admitted in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit NICU. Over the last decade premature birth rates have been steadily rising and owing to the technological advances even survival of the extreme preterm babies is a possibility. As many preterm babies thrive and survive focus must also be given to the parents especially the mothers who deliver before their estimated time of delivery. It is believed that most of the mothers undergo emotional turmoil as they are mentally not prepared for it. At times mothers feel helpless and reduced maternal confidence may lead to poor outcomes in the preterm baby care. Helping mothers to deal with this phase is essential. Coping strategies and support received from such mothers differ from place to place. Studies have been conducted for improving the coping of mothers with preterm babies and COPE has been highlighted as a useful strategy for better maternal adaptation. The findings of this review may help explore the outcomes of COPE program in alleviating the maternal emotional distress. This review will utilize studies that have used COPE program and its effect on mothers with preterm in the NICU on the stress anxiety coping and competence. The studies can be truequasi-experimental in nature. Research papers that evaluate any of the components of stress anxiety coping and competence will be considered. Both published and unpublished papers will be included in the review. MEDLINE Embase CINAHL the Cochrane Library Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials Google Scholar J-gate Dissertation Abstracts International ProQuest Dissertations and Theses are the main databases to be searched. The methodological merit of each study will be evaluated critically by two independent reviewers. Where possible studies will be combined in a statistical meta-analysis.