Unmet Needs for Healthy Newborns’ Mothers in Hospital Care: A Qualitative Study

Background The first hours and days of birth are considered as the most sensitive time for mothers and newborns which require complete and high-quality care and services. To improve the quality of cares, recognizing the needs of service receivers is considered one of the most important approaches. We aimed to identify the unmet needs of healthy newborns' mothers in hospitals. Materials and Methods: This qualitative study was carried out through recording and implementing 14 in-depth, semi-structured interviews at the discharge time with healthy newborns' mothers about their most important expectations and unmet needs in terms of newborns’ care in several hospitals in Tehran, Iran. Purposeful sampling was used. Then, directional content-analysis was performed using the Grundheim and Lundman approach and the main research themes were identified. Results: Unmet needs of mothers in terms of cares provided for their newborns in hospitals were included in two main themes: 1) Unmet services required for mothers of healthy newborns including three categories: mental, and psychological services and cares, the continuous presence of companion patience and the need for proper and timely services; and 2) Required information for healthy newborns’ mothers including two categories of the need for receiving complete information about health status of the newborn and the need for receiving additional information and more training related to healthy newborn care. Conclusion: According to the study, healthy newborns' mothers have unmet needs in hospital including support services and sufficient information. Therefore, appropriate services and information should be provided to mothers to care for their healthy newborns. This not only increases the satisfaction of mothers but also improves the quality of healthy newborn care in hospital.