Abstract
Objective Infants cared for in a newborn intensive care unit (NICU) experience pain, parental
separation, and stress that may approach toxic levels, thus are potentially traumatic.
Lack of accepted clinical terminology to describe the infant experience may result
in under appreciation of NICU hospitalization on infant and family outcomes. This
study explored NICU clinician perceptions of the infant experience and how the terms
trauma/traumatic would impact their clinical roles and practices.
Study Design Semistructured focus group interviews and thematic analysis were used to describe
professionals' perceptions of the infant's experience and terminology. Focus groups
were organized by professional role, including NICU leadership, physicians, nurses,
and ancillary providers.
Result Six themes emerged from the qualitative analysis: at our mercy, trauma defined and
redefined, and now you have broken them too, perceptions of NICU experience change
over time, trauma in the NICU: whose trauma is it, and not knowing the infant and
family experience.
Conclusion While recognizing potentially toxic infant stress levels, clinicians are reluctant
to describe the NICU infant experience as traumatic. Hesitations relate to clinicians'
personal concerns that they may be seen as agents of trauma and the impact for families
if the NICU experience was described as traumatic by clinicians.
Keywords
preterm infants - NICU - trauma - traumatic - focus group
