Competing Tensions: Nurse Perceptions of Family-Centered Care and Parents' Needs in Neonatal Care

Background: Family-centered care is founded upon collaboration between parents and healthcare professionals, caring for a child and parents as one entity. The unfamiliar neonatal environment and complexity of care can make family-centered care challenging. Purpose: To explore neonatal nurses' perceptions of family-centered care and parents' cultural needs. Methods: This was a qualitative descriptive study using interviews to gather data from registered nurses, and analyzed using inductive content analysis. Results: Ten neonatal nurses participated in online interviews, lasting an average of 25 minutes. Parents' cultural needs were poorly understood and assumed synonymous with family-centered care. While all acknowledged the importance of family-centered care, most described tasks to parent-infant bonding, rather than a broader embodiment of family-centered care. In time of uncertainty, emergent clinical priorities took priority over a family-centered approach to care. Cultural care was poorly understood, and care tasks associated with supporting parent-infant bonding suggest further work is necessary to promote embodiment of family-centered care beyond individual tasks. While emergent clinical priorities and neonate well-being will always be the priority, finding a way to respond that concords with the ethos of family-centered care is also essential. Implications for practice and research: Clear and consistent leadership is needed to demonstrate greater embodiment of family-centered care, which includes cultural care for parents. Strong leadership and targeted education are key to supporting this change. Further research is warranted to examine and observe practice, in particular how parents' cultural needs are assessed and integrated into family-centered care in neonatal settings.