Quality of life of mothers providing early stimulation to preterm infants

Abstract

Introduction: Early stimulation program given for preterm infants aims to improve neurodevelopmental outcomes by enabling them to achieve typical developmental milestones. The mother serves as the cornerstone of the early stimulation program, dedicating significant time and effort to her child’s development, which often leads to physical and mental stress. Objective: To assess the quality of life (QoL) of mothers who provide an early stimulation program to preterm infants. Methods: This cross-sectional study included 30 mothers of preterm infants and 33 mothers of full-term infants. Educational levels, working status, parity and socioeconomic class were obtained from mothers. RAND 36 questionnaire was administered to mothers after sufficient instructions and responses were scored by principal investigator. Results: Unpaired t-test was used to determine differences between the RAND-36 domain scores of mothers of preterm and full-term infants. Mothers of preterm infants demonstrated significantly lower scores than mothers of full-term infants in physical functioning (68.83 ± 21.32 vs 80.6 ± 15.7), role limitation due to physical health (42.63 ± 38.78 vs 65.15 ± 33.03), energy/fatigue (50.66 ± 21.88 vs 61.81 ± 14.02), and emotional well-being (56.53 ± 19.19 vs 66.78 ± 15.18) at p < 0.05 and Cohen’s d ≈ 0.60–0.63. Conclusion: The QoL of mothers of premature infants was lower in selected domains of physical and mental health, compared to mothers of infants born at term. These findings suggest the importance of monitoring maternal well-being and developing support strategies for this population.