Alliance for Family Integrated Care (FICare) Implementation in Neonatal Intensive Care Units

Preterm births are the major cause of infant mortality in both developed and developing worldwide countries and one of the main concerns of public health systems.

Very low birth weight infants and new-borns who suffer severe acquired diseases, congenital malformations or rare diseases face similar burdens and challenges. Altogether can be referred as “high-risk neonates”.

These neonates have to spend long periods at Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs) and, even so, they are at risk of developing short- and long-term health problems.

This fact provokes suffering (e.g. anxiety, stress or trauma) to high-risk neonates’ parents and stressful situations, including burn-out, to NICU clinical staff.

To overcome this, a Family Integrated Care (FICare) model that involves parents as primary caregivers in NICU teams has been recently developed with very promising results.RISEinFAMILY, a 52-months research project, aims to undertake an implementation study of the FICare model to make it suitable to all environments (no matter the country or the NICU) and set it as the new international standard of neonatal and family care.A geographical, social and cultural diverse consortium composed of 12 partners from 4 high- (ES, NL, UK, and CA), 2 middle- (RO and TR) and 1 low-income (ZM) countries will scale-up and adapt the FICare model for the first time in Europe, Africa and Asia.

About 2800 infants will be assessed and clinical staff and families from at least 1600 high-risk neonates trained and educated for enrolling in 7 pilots worldwide (5 in non-FICare and 2 in FICare NICUs).Using mixed-methods research, the project will assess the impact of RISEinFAMILY in infants’ health (during NICU admission and after discharge), families and healthcare professionals experience from a psychological perspective and the socio-economic sustainability.

Project outcomes will be promoted for stakeholders’ engagement and an appropriate strategy for exploitation of results will be defined.