Mother–clinician discussions in the neonatal intensive care unit: agree to disagree
Journal of Perinatology, 08/21/2012
De Wit S et al. – Mother–clinician satisfaction with communication does not ensure mother–clinician agreement about an infant’s medical status.
Methods- English-speaking mothers with an infant admitted to the intensive care unit for at least 48h were interviewed using a semi-structured survey.
- The clinician whom the mother had spoken to and identified was also surveyed. Interviews were audiotaped and transcribed.
- A total of 101 mother–clinician pairs were interviewed. Most mothers (89%) and clinicians (92%) felt that their discussions had gone well.
- Almost all mothers could identify one of their infant’s diagnoses (100%) and treatments (93.4%).
- Mothers and clinicians disagreed on infant illness severity 45% of the time.
- The majority of mothers (62.5%) who disagreed with clinician estimate of infant illness severity believed their infant to be less sick than indicated by the clinician.
