Nurse’s perspective on barriers in the implementation of kangaroo mother care in a tertiary care hospital from North India

Abstract

Background: Despite the established benefits of kangaroo mother care (KMC), it is not being implemented in all eligible babies. There are several barriers in its implementation including those from the nurses, mothers, and institution. Objective: The objective of the study was to determine the nurse’s perspective on various barriers in the implementation of KMC. Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional descriptive study in which data were collected from all the nurses of the Department of Neonatology and Obstetrics in a tertiary care hospital, from North India, over 1 week using a structured pre-tested questionnaire covering barriers in three main domains - mothers (6), nursing staff (7), and institutional (5). Results: There were a total of 40 nurses, who responded to questionnaire; among them, 70% were from neonatology and 30% were from obstetrics. Mean barrier-free score (BFS) (%) was 48.93±14.77 with a range of 29.17–76.39, while median (interquartile range) was 47.22 (44.4–52.4). Mean BFS was found to be statistically significant when compared between maternal and nursing domains (54.5±11.1 vs. 43.3±11.9 vs. 49.0±18.4, p=0.003). Conclusion: The present study shows that the most important barriers in KMC implementation were lack of support to mother, duty schedule of staff, difficulty in convincing, and a private/separate environment for KMC. Therefore, actions need to be taken to overcome these barriers to use this simple intervention with enormous benefits.