Date of Award

2022

Embargo Period

7-4-2022

Document Type

Dissertation - MUSC Only

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College

College of Nursing

First Advisor

Lynne S. Nemeth

Second Advisor

Michelle Nichols

Third Advisor

Carol Wagner

Abstract

Kangaroo Care (KC), the act of holding an infant in direct skin-to-skin contact against the chest of the person holding the infant has been studied primarily to highlight the benefits it provides to infants, especially premature infants. Implementation studies for KC have been limited, leaving many gaps for researchers to explore related to its practice in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). This dissertation is a compendium of three manuscripts that begin to explore further details about KC implementation in the NICU. The first is a realist review that explores KC implementation in NICUs by comparing the documents that describe how and when KC is performed. The second manuscript is a realist review that begins to describe KC reach, adoption, implementation, and maintenance in the NICU. The third manuscript details the results of a multi-method study that evaluates the reach of KC within a Level IV NICU and the effects of implementing a decision support tool on the reach of KC. KC offers promising benefits for infants that can help to mitigate complications related to NICU hospitalization. This dissertation highlights research gaps in KC that can be further studied to increase the amount of KC infants receive for better outcomes.

Rights

All rights reserved. Copyright is held by the author.

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