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Parents’ perceptions of an intervention for infants with behavioral sleep problems

University of British Columbia

Between 13% and 35% of infants and young children have experienced behavioural sleep problems. A pilot study, which was entitled: Evaluation of an Intervention Aimed at Resolving Behavioural Sleep Problems in 6-lo-12-month-old Infants: A Pilot Study, was undertaken to evaluate the efficacy of an intervention. My study comprised the qualitative component of the pilot study. The purpose of my study was to explore parents' perceptions about the sleep intervention used in the pilot study and any burden associated with the study. The sleep intervention included: providing parents information about normal infant sleep, controlled comforting, bedtime routines, organized daytime schedules and naps, and completing forms to record routines and controlled comforting. Following a teaching session about the study intervention, each family implemented the intervention which also included bi-weekly follow-up phone calls to offer support. I used a descriptive, exploratory research design. Through purposive sampling, I identified and interviewed 14 families who had completed the intervention. I used inductive content analysis method to analyze the data. Nine themes emerged from my analysis: changes in perspectives about sleep, gaining a framework to tackle sleep problems, unanticipated changes resulting from using the strategies in the study, challenges for parents, fitting intervention strategies into parents' realities, factors interfering with successful interventions, parents' support systems, parents' expectations of the study, and inadvertent benefits of the study. Each theme subsumed a number of sub-themes. The thesis includes implications of these findings for nursing education, practice, and research.

Text

2009-12-11

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/16436

Nursing

University of British Columbia

UBCV

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