the effects of a designed program on oxygen saturation and heart rate of premature infants hospitalized in neonatal intensive care unit of al-zahra hospital in isfahan in 2008-2009

background: prematurity is the main cause of death in infants under one years of age and is the main reason for nicu hospitalization. the stressful environment of nicu exposes preterm infants to inappropriate stimuli. this study aimed to determine and compare the mean of heart rate and oxygen saturation of premature infants before and during a designed program in nicu. methods: in a clinical trial study of before and after intervention on a single group, 31 hospitalized premature newborn in nicu of al-zahra hospital in isfahan were selected by simple continuous sampling method. data were collected through interview, observation and records of a checklist. the data was analyzed using spss and descriptive and inferential statistics. results: out of 31 premature infants in the study, 60% were boys and 35% were girls. the mean of arterial oxygen before and during the designed program were 92.80±2.54 and 94.22±2.59, respectively. the results of paired t test showed a significant difference between the mean of oxygen saturation of the infants before and during the program (p = 0.048), but there was no significant difference between the mean of the infants' heart beat before and during the intervention. conclusions: the findings showed that applying daily silence periods can greatly help to increase oxygen saturation and this could lead to improve the growth of premature infants. therefore, by providing more facilities in clinical environments of nicu, conducting programs to reduce light and noise in these wards would be possible. key words: programmed instruction, prematurity, neonatal, pulse oximetry, noise, light.