A four-session mindfulness-based cognitive therapy enhances problem-focused coping strategies in mothers of neonates in NICUs.

Résumé

BACKGROUND: The birth of an infant with an abnormality or a postpartum disease and subsequent admission to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) is very stressful for mothers. The adoption of effective coping strategies can enable the mother to tolerate the critical conditions of the newborn’s illness. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a short-term (four 2-hour sessions) mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) program on improving coping strategies among mothers of infants admitted to the NICU.METHODS: This quasi-experimental study was conducted using a pre-test-post-test design on 50 mothers of preterm infants hospitalized in the NICU of Afzalipur Hospital, Kerman, Iran. The mothers recruited through convenience sampling, then randomly assigned to experimental (MBCT) and control groups (25 mothers each). The MBCT program involved four 2-hour sessions, focusing on mindfulness exercises, stretching, meditation, and cognitive restructuring, for the participants in the intervention group. The participants in the control group received routine NICU care. The Ways of Coping Checklist (WCCL) and the demographic information form were completed before and after the intervention by the participants in both groups. Data were collected before and one month after the intervention, analysed using paired and independent t-tests via SPSS-25.RESULTS: The intervention group showed a significant increase in problem-focused coping strategies and a decrease in emotion-focused coping strategies post-intervention (