Coping styles and stress level of adolescent mothers with hospitalized children in neonatal intensive care unit Chiapas, México

Abstract

Introduction: adolescent pregnancy is considered a public health problem due to the adverse effects that the mother and the child can have during pregnancy, childbirth and puerperium; complications that are attributed to the adolescent's age, psychological implications and biological factors. Among the main problems for the child are prematurity, delayed uterine growth and respiratory distress syndrome. The teen has to take on the new rol, and practice  coping (COPING); mothers simultaneously experience stress.

Objective: discuss the coping styles and stress level of adolescent mothers with children hospitalized in the NICU neonatal intensive care unit.

Material and methodos: quantitative, cross-sectional, observational, prolect study. Sampling at convenience with 80 selected teens   in a second-level hospital; a Likert-type self-report questionnaire was implemented consisting of sociodemographic data, adolescent coping scale and parental stress scale, both instruments adapted by López, Carmona and Ponce in 2016. Type of analysis: SPSS 23, and descriptive statistics, inferential statistical.

Results: regarding coping styles, teenage girls were found to be targetins the unproductive style, the self-incriminate strategy. In relation to the analysis of perceived stress, it was found at high levels, the subscale corresponding to the relationship with  the child and the maternal role, shows the average stress, in the subdimension are the aspects and sounds of the unit and appearence and behavior of the child.

Conclusion: adolescent mothers are in the style of unproductive coping often distrust their abilities, causing feelings of insecurity, thus hospitalizing the newborn in the NICU and the relationship with the child and the maternal role for them is extremely stressful . Therefore, educational intervention and training are requiered to direct your behaviors to a positive approach and thus improve the performance regarding the care of your child in neonatal intensive therapy.