Experiences of mothers nursing their neonates on end of life care in neonatal intensive care unit at women and newborn hospital, university teaching hospitals, Lusaka Zambia.

Introduction: Neonatal intensive care unit is important to save the lives of a sick neonates; however, mothers are challenged by several stressful conditions during their stay including the ones nursing end of life care neonates. End of life care is a unique healthcare situation embedded with the scope of palliative care provision.

Methodology: The study had twelve participants and the participants were selected using purposeful sampling. The study was a phenomenological (descriptive) qualitative study. Data was collected using an interview guide and analysed using thematic analysis.

Findings: The study revealed that mothers suffered from inadequate emotional support and inadequate information as staff working in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit were not readily available to give them emotional support, and lack of time for updates as the staffs seemed all busy.

Conclusion: This study explored the experiences of mothers nursing their neonates on endof-life care in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Women and New-born Hospital, University Teaching Hospitals. Main findings indicated that parents experienced both psychological and emotional problems such as, anxiety, stress, worry, hopelessness, confusion and anger. In addition, the study revealed that mothers suffered from inadequate emotional support
and differences in information delivery, lack of updates from staff and inadequate communication. Furthermore, mothers reported to have no emotional support from the spouse and little or no financial assistance.