Maternal stress of cases in pediatric intensive care unit in Tertiary hospital Bangalore

Background: Pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) is a highly stressful environment to most parents specifically mothers who are very sensitive. Knowledge of their stress helps us to plan counselling strategies for the suffering parents. The objectives were to identify common maternal stress factors during their childs critical illness and to examine the relationship of different variables with the stress. Methods: It was a prospective observational study done in PICU of a tertiary care medical college hospital in Bangalore. One hundred mothers of children (1 month to 15 years) admitted to PICU for at least 24 hours were interviewed using the Parental Stress Scale (PSS: PICU), which rates 22 factors on a scale from 1 to 5. The demographic and clinical characteristics of children were also recorded and analysed statistically. Results: The average parental stress score was 3.5. Parents of children who got admitted in PICU for the first time were more stressed The main causes of extremely stressful situations were the sight of other sick children in PICU sight of monitors & equipment in PICU, their child being unresponsive, crisis in other children in the PICU.. Younger mother were more stressed than older mother, irrespective of the illness and clinical status. Age of the child, sex, socioeconomic status, urban/rural, did not vary stress levels, all had similar stress level (score>3). Among the procedures, majority (52%) parents felt intravenous cannulation as more stressful followed by blood sampling (43%). Conclusions: For a mother, first PICU admission were more stressful. Socioeconomic status, age of children and residence did not affect level of stress. Many of these stress factors can be resolved and remedial steps can be undertaken to relieve these stressors.