Situations of continuing of care for high risk preterm infants, Yala Hospital

Abstract

This descriptive research aimed to explore the situation of continuing care (CoC) for high-risk preterm infants at Yala Hospital.  There were 17 Informants including five nurse administrators, seven registered nurses in the hospital, and five health professionals in the community. The study framework was developed based on Donabedine' s model of health care quality assessment (2003). Data collection was conducted through a semi-structured interview and documentary review. Qualitative data were analyzed by content analysis method, while a percentage was used for quantitative data. The study revealed the CoC situation for high-risk preterm Infants as follows:        1) For the structural dimension, Yala hospital had a CoC policy, board committee, and informatics technology support system. However, occurrences of insufficient communication related to CoC policy, inconsistent coaching, lack of resources for preparing caregivers, lack of confidence regarding the care for high-risk preterm infants among health care professionals who worked in a community, and using non-specific recording forms for infants were revealed. 2) For the process dimension, fragmentation of process and lack of method of identifying primary caregivers and co- caregivers were found. 3) For the outcome dimension, an ambiguous evaluation system to monitor infant growth and development was observed. Moreover, 24.4 percent of the infants had delayed increase of body weight compare to standard, and re-admitting rates of these infants was higher than the hospital target. The study findings indicate that there is a need for management model for CoC for high-risk preterm infants for this context to enhance quality of care for the infants.