Iranian Journal of Rehabilitation Research in Nursing

Introduction: Experience of pregnancy and childbirth in women's lives especially in their first pregnancies has been considered a very stressful situation. Indeed neonates readmissions in the hospitals for any reason can induce even more stress and anxiety in these mothers. In these critical situations grandmothers can play a pivotal role in helping these young parents with their empathy and listening to their worries and providing valuable counseling and advices for overcoming any potential problem. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of emotional empowering of these grandmothers on anxiety of their primiparous daughters due to neonatal readmission to hospitals.

Methods: This was a quasi-experimental study, the research population consisted of primiparous women who their newborns were hospitalized in Rajaei hospital-Gachsaran city–Iran for different medical reasons in 2015.84 women and their mothers consisted as our sample who allocated to intervention and control groups using convenience sampling method. Grandmothers in intervention group received the emotional empowerment program that has been developed based on Mercer theory and Ravanipour self-management model through face to face sessions and telephone follow ups for one month. Anxiety levels were measured in both groups of mothers after intervention using Spielberger state trait anxiety inventory. The data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics with SPSSv.18 software.

Results: The demographic data of two groups were not significantly different (P > 0/05). Anxiety levels of intervention and control groups before intervention showed no statistically significant difference(P≥0.05). After empowerment program grandmothers in intervention group showed remarkable decrease in their anxiety levels compared to control group counterparts (P = 0/000).

Conclusion: Emotional Empowering based on self-management model implemented on grandmothers resulted in a significant reduction in anxiety of their primiparous daughters with hospitalized newborns. This model of empowerment should be used more extensively by nurses as routine practice in newborn wards and neonatal intensive care units.