Background: The Family Integrated Care (FICare) model is a modern approach that supports the participation of parents (excluding ventilation, monitor adjustments, vascular fluid and drug administration) developed in collaboration between parents and healthcare professionals, which is carried out gradually in the NICU (1). Parents are informed about the general development of the baby, brain and sensory development, motor and behavior development, care of the premature. In addition, parents are informed about what they can do about general body cleaning and care, especially in touch, attachment, skin-to-skin contact, breastfeeding and increased breast milk and diaper change (2).FICare; It is a care model with a 25% increase in the weight gain of premature babies, a 80% increase in breastfeeding rate, a 25% decrease in parental stress, a significant decrease in critical incident reports such as hospital infection and sudden infant death (3). The care that these babies receive in their first hours, days, weeks and months is vital to determine their future health and long-term outcomes. Evidence suggests that if parents are supported and encouraged to take care of their babies while in hospital, this will have better outcomes for both the baby and their family. FICare support not only reduces the length of hospital stay of parents, but also reduces the rate of re-hospitalization, and strengthens the bond between parents and babies. It helps parents feel safer when taking care of their babies, both in the hospital and at home (4).
A standard care model for discharge preparation is not applied to parents who have a premature baby in their NICU. Institutions make the decision to discharge with the opinions of the doctor and nurse working in the unit. With the FICare model, it is thought that parents will be prepared for discharge, bonding between parents and babies, fulfilling their parental roles, supporting babies' breastfeeding, reducing hospital stay, enhancing parental-employee communication, and increasing the quality of care services..
Premature infants who were hospitalized for at least seven days between February 6, 2020, and August 15, 2021, in the NICU of a training and research hospital formed the population of the study. In the study, the total number of parents was determined as 68 when the margin of error was 5%, the power level was 81.17%, and the effect size value was 0.70. At the end of the study, a post hoc power analysis was conducted to determine the adequacy of the sample size. As a result of the power analysis, for the details of the difference between the groups in terms of the scale score of fathers with premature babies in the neonatal intensive care unit, type 1 error: 0.05, n: 68 people, effect size = 1.990, and the power level according to the structure was determined as 1.000. To determine the difference in terms of the scale score of mothers with premature babies in the neonatal intensive care unit, type 1 error: 0.05, n: 68 people, effect size = 2.586 and power level according to temperature was determined as 1.000. These values show that the sample size is sufficient.
