Improving Parents Access to Shaken Baby Syndrome Prevention Education

Purposes/Aims: The purpose of this evidence based intervention is to reduce the incidence of SBS in families who have hospitalized children. The aims are: 1) to educate all parents at  University of New Mexico Hospital’s (UNMH) with children in the  Intermediate Care Nursery (ICN) and Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NBICU)  and 2) to measure readmission rates of these children SBS.

Rationale/Background: Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS), a form of child abuse, is the leading cause of death in children under one year of age.  The death rate from SBS is 15% to 38%, and more than 80% of SBS children have lifelong brain injuries. This preventable child abuse costs the US health care system over $124 billion annually.

Methods: The interventions include giving parents the flier “Never Shake a Baby,” reviewing the flier with them, and providing instruction on the dangers of SBS and coping with crying. The parents then watched the DVD “Portrait of Promise: Preventing Shaken Baby Syndrome.”  Nurses also use a simulation doll as an interactive tool for parents to visualize the brain damage that occurs when a baby is shaken. The nurses then asked parents whether they had questions concerning the SBS information they had received, and gave them a consent letter for a follow up phone call to determine what they remembered from the program. The parents were then called at 7 months, and the survey was completed.

Outcomes achieved/documented:  There were 802 parents from the UNMH ICN and NICU who participated in the program.  Ninety-nine percent of those who responded found the information they received helpful, 16.7% stated this was the first time they had heard that shaking a baby is dangerous, and 99.5% recommended that this information be given to all new parents. The majority of respondents were 19-25 years old and only one fourth of these parents had any high school education. Over a third of the children lived in a single-parent household.  The majority of the parents had Medicaid or a governmental program for health insurance, which also put them at high risk for SBS.  The most significant of the findings was that none of the children whose parents received education were readmitted to the hospital during this study.

Conclusions;  The results indicate that many parents with children in the sub-acute and intensive care nurseries do not know about SBS and normal infant crying.  It is clear that parents’ knowledge is improved by the nurses’ sharing information with parents while they are in the hospital with their children.  A simple pamphlet and video with the one-to-one education seems to be effective. These children being born in the ICN and in the NICU presents a great opportunity for nurses to educate their at-risk parents, and has resulted in prevention of SBS for this high-risk population