ABSTRACT
Low birth weight [LBW] infants are susceptible to many diseases such as sepsis, growth and developmental disorders, and most of them need special care. This study was carried out to determine the effects of discharge planning for mothers on growth and developmental indicators in low birth weight infants in Amirkola hospital. In this study, 55 LBW infants and their mothers were randomly selected and divided into 2 groups with the random allocation technique [29 in control group and 26 in test group]. It was used a questionnaire including family demographic characteristics, information related to health condition of newborn, growth indicators [weight, height and head circumference] and developmental indexes [reflexes]. Discharge planning was performed in test group considering mother's learning needs, while the participants in the control group received usual services from nursing staff. Infants after discharge from hospital were taken to outpatient every month until three months in order to control growth and development indexes. Repeated measurement ANOVA was used to compare the growth indexes in two groups and Mann-Whitney U-test used to assess reflexes. According to the results, there was a significant difference between two groups in weight, length and head circumference indexes [p< 0.0001]. No differences were seen between two groups in moro, sucking, grasping reflexes. There was a clinically significant difference between two groups. On the basis of the results it could be claimed that discharge planning has a positive effect in continuity of care from hospital to home and preventive complication of prematurity and development of low birth weight infants