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The purpose of this research was to explore parental perspectives on the impact of parent restrictions imposed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic across Canadian Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs). A co-designed online survey was conducted targeting parents (n = 235) of infants admitted to a Canadian NICU from March 1, 2020, until March 5, 2021. Parents completed the survey from 38 Canadian NICUs. Large variation in the severity of policies regarding parental presence was reported. Most respondents (68.9%) were classified as experiencing high restrictions, with one or no support people allowed in the NICU, and felt that policies were less easy to understand, felt less valued and respected, and found it more challenging to access medicine or health care. Parents reported gaps in care related to self-care, accessibility, and mental health outcomes. There is significant variation in parental restrictions implemented across Canadian NICUs. National guidelines are needed to support consistent and equitable care practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To conduct a needs assessment with families and their healthcare team to understand the impact of restrictive family presence policies in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) in response to COVID-19. Background: In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, significant restrictive family presence policies were instituted in most NICUs globally intended to protect infants, families, and HCPs. However, knowledge on the impact of the stress of the pandemic and policies restricting family presence in the NICU on vulnerable neonates and their families remains limited. Methods: Individuals were eligible to participate if they were a caregiver of an infant requiring NICU care or a healthcare provider (HCP) in the NICU after March 1, 2020. Semi-structured interviews were conducted using a virtual communication platform, and transcripts were analyzed using inductive thematic qualitative content analysis. Results: Twenty-three participants were interviewed (12 families and 11 HCPs). Three themes emerged: (1) successes (family-integrated care, use of technology), (2) challenges (lack of standardized messaging and family engagement, impact on parental wellbeing, institutional barriers, and virtual care), and (3) moving forward (responsive and supportive leadership). Conclusions: Our findings highlight the significant impact of family restrictions on the mental well-being of families, physical closeness with parents, and empathetic stress to HCPs. Further study of potential long-term impact is warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: With each month of the COVID-19 pandemic, unmet health and social needs increased. Unfortunately, maintaining up-to-date information on available resources to meet those needs was a challenge. As public health guidance evolved weekly, existing resources, such as food pantries and pharmacies, experienced reduced capacity, shifts to virtual service delivery, and frequent changes in their hours of operations. New resources, such as emergency financial assistance programs, also emerged to mitigate the consequences of the pandemic. In Durham, North Carolina, there was a need for a centralized platform to access accurate resource information. Aims Objectives Theory or Methods: Our team of university student volunteers partnered with a social services non-profit to create, maintain, and disseminate an online directory of health and social care resources in Durham County between May 2020 and October 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our goals were to ensure the resource directory was (1) publicly accessible, (2) available in English and Spanish, (3) up-todate, (4) amenable to community feedback, and (5) tailored to community needs. For included resources, we captured the name, target recipients, purpose, description, website links, contact info, language access, status during COVID-19, and the date resource information was last updated. Highlights or Results or Key Findings: We sourced and consolidated existing county-level resource directories to centralize information on 370+ resources across 12 health and social care domains (e.g., transportation, housing, medical care). 51+ students across our two organizations worked in small teams by resource domain to update information every few days in spreadsheet format in a Google Sheets platform. The public also contributed updates through a comments feature. Our directory was hosted online by the county public health department and distributed widely via social media, email, and other trusted websites. Our partner non-profit operated a hotline to provide directory navigation support. Targeted dissemination efforts further included (1) integrating the directory into the local health system's intranet, (2) synthesizing resources for paper handouts for in-person distribution at health centers and food pantries, and (3) curating a population-focused directory serving the needs of older adults. Our directory served as the local foundation for a statewide platform now available. Conclusions: Promoting integrated health and social care through cross-sector referrals requires providers to access accurate resource information. Student volunteers mobilized quickly and efficiently to support the information needs of the community when needs were high and resources were constrained. Volunteers are a low-cost, high-value resource to support integrated care efforts. Implications for applicability/transferability sustainability and limitations: Our community resource directory model, facilitated by student volunteers, can be replicated to serve emerging health and social care integration efforts. Essential components included strong relationships with community partners, faculty oversight and guidance, and a defined student leadership structure. Students invested in public and population health make this model sustainable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: To co-create parental presence practice recommendations across Canadian NICUs during pandemics caused by respiratory pathogens such as COVID-19., Methods: Recommendations were developed through evidence, context, Delphi and Values and Preferences methods. For Delphi 1 and 2, participants rated 50 items and 20 items respectively on a scale from 1 (very low importance) to 5 (very high). To determine consensus, evidence and context of benefits and harms were presented and discussed within the Values and Preference framework for the top-ranked items. An agreement of 80% or more was deemed consensus., Results: After two Delphi rounds ( n  = 59 participants), 13 recommendations with the highest rated importance were identified. Consensus recommendations included 6 strong recommendations (parents as essential caregivers, providing skin-to-skin contact, direct or mothers' own expressed milk feeding, attending medical rounds, mental health and psychosocial services access, and inclusion of parent partners in pandemic response planning) and 7 conditional recommendations (providing hands-on care tasks, providing touch, two parents present at the same time, food and drink access, use of communication devices, and in-person access to medical rounds and mental health and psychosocial services)., Conclusion: These recommendations can guide institutions in developing strategies for parental presence during pandemics caused by respiratory pathogens like COVID-19., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (© 2024 Campbell-Yeo, Bacchini, Alcock, Mitra, MacNeil, Mireault, Beltempo, Bishop, Campbell, Chilcott, Comeau, Dol, Grant, Gubbay, Hughes, Hundert, Inglis, Lakoff, Lalani, Luu, Morton, Narvey, O'Brien, Robeson, Science, Shah and Whitehead.)