Mothers' needs regarding partnerships with nurses during care of infants with congenital heart defects in a paediatric cardiac intensive care unit.

Objectives: We investigated mothers' needs in forming partnerships with nurses based on children's postoperative recovery in a paediatric cardiac intensive care unit.

Design: This was a descriptive study using prospective data.

Setting: Data were collected from 36 mothers enrolled in a mother-nurse partnership program.

Main Outcome Measures: We investigated mothers' need for information and participation activities using a self-made survey tool, as well as the duration of mothers' care participation and physical engagement and psychological connectedness.

Results: The mothers desired information on their infants' postoperative stability in the early recovery phases and information on infants' transfer and care in the later phases. Mothers' mean duration of care participation increased as infants' recovery progressed (15.82 ± 8.76 minutes in the second phase of recovery to 29.46 ± 4.53 minutes in the fifth phase; F = 19.54, p < .001). Mothers' physical engagement and psychological connectedness also increased with infants' recovery (F = 200.95, p < .001; F = 93.27, p < .001, respectively). Mothers generally passively participated at first and gradually developed more positive and enthusiastic participation as infants recovered.

Conclusion: Infants' condition heavily influenced mothers' needs regarding partnerships. Thus, nurses must individually provide mothers with information and encourage them to participate in care.