6405 Do parental perceptions of family integrated care (FICare) correspond to the model of care offered in a tertiary level neonatal unit?

Objectives Family Integrated Care (FICare) is a care-model advocated in neonatal units (NICU) to empower parents as partners in care.¹ Preliminary evidence highlights a wide range of benefits.² Our project aimed to evaluate current implementation of FICare-related activities in our tertiary NICU and identify parents' perceptions of their involvement in care activities and bonding. Methods Retrospective data collection from electronic patient records of NICU admissions over an 8-week period (not including re-admissions) and online parental survey. Results Table 1. summarises our data collection from electronic patient records. A total of 150 admissions were identified. Of these 61 (41%) were term and 89 (59%) preterm. Average admission was 10.5 days. 8 (5%) survey responses were completed. Of the survey responses, 6 (75%) felt very involved in their baby's care, 1 (12.5%) somewhat and 1 (12.5%) not involved. 100% felt their feedback/experiences were actively sought by team members. 5 (62.5%) knew what FiCare was and 6 (75%) agreed skin-to-skin was encouraged. 6 (75%) indicated they received a tour/introduction to NICU. Free-text comments regarding what made parents feel supported focussed predominantly on staff's interactions: '…very supportive and informative', '…very best care', '…made us feel calmer and confident about our child's care'. Conclusion Our unit has achieved green accreditation from local Neonatal Operational Delivery Network demonstrating successful implementation and performance of FICare, reflecting activities are likely carried-out but are not being documented. Unfortunately, a low survey response limits conclusions but parental free-text comments did positively mirror our FICare model. Low response-rate was possibly impacted by our survey timing; the admission-period when parental stress is heightened. Reflecting on this, embedding FICare-related questions into our well-established parental discharge survey may help improve future response rates. Overall, analysis has helped identify inadequate documentation as an opportunity to effectively improve our ongoing FICare evaluation. By implementing electronic- mandatory checklists we hope to improve distinction between activities not-achieved vs. those undocumented, thereby helping us to more accurately target areas for improvement. References Ficare: a framework for Practice. BAPM 2021. O'Brien K, Robson K, Bracht M, Cruz M, Lui K, Alvaro R, da Silva O, Monterrosa L, Narvey M, Ng E, Soraisham A, Ye XY, Mirea L, Tarnow-Mordi W, Lee SK. FICare Study Group and FICare Parent Advisory Board. Effectiveness of family integrated care in neonatal intensive care units on infant and parent outcomes: a multicentre, multinational, cluster-randomised controlled trial. Lancet Child Adolesc Health 2018.