Religious Coping Processes of Mothers in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

The hospitalization of newborns to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) is a stressful situation for parents. Mothers who imagine delivering a healthy baby may experience a crisis and undergo feelings of shock, anxiety and grief after giving birth to a premature baby, baby with congenital anomalies or baby with serious diseases, and have to endure self blame in most cases. Similar to mothers in the NICU, most people use coping mechanisms in the face of stressful situations. The way in which an individual handles stress is called coping. The role of religion in the coping process has gained much importance in recent years. Religious coping is defined as the use of beliefs in the process of problem solving and dealing with stress. In this context, the main aim of this study is to explore how the mothers, who have newborns admitted to NICU for any reason, cope with the problems they encounter, to explain the religious coping strategies they use in this process, and to determine whether they need spiritual support in this situation. In this study, qualitative approach is adopted and semi-structured interviews technique is used for data collection. The research sample is consisted of 15 mothers of infants, who were hospitalized or recently discharged from the NICU of Sakarya University Teaching and Education Hospital in which they stayed in the intensive care for more than five days between the dates of November 2018 and December 2018. The interviews took place in the “Mother Hotel” which is a place created inside the hospital in order for NICU mothers to stay. Interview questions are prepared considering the participants’ post-partum period, and we carefully abstained from expressions that may cause more stress and pain. Descriptive analysis method has been employed for the evaluation of the collected data. In this study, participants’ age range is 22-42, with the average age of 30. Participants qualified themselves as moderate in terms of religiosity and economic status. The majority of the infants of the participant admitted to NICU due to prematurity while only a few had medical conditions. According to the results of the research, it has been found out that a majority of the participants (11 mother) felt fear, shock, grief and disbelief at the very first moment that a NICU admission is anticipated for their baby. Three of the participants stated that they felt positive emotions such as relief and confidence, knowing that their infants are admitted to the NICU. According to the majority of the participants, the most disturbing situation in this