IMPLEMENTATION OF A SHARED READING CAMPAIGN IN THE NICU: A QUALITY INITIATIVE STUDY

ABSTRACT

Purpose of Study Language exposure is essential for speech and language development in newborns. NICU infants by virtue of their prolonged hospitalizations or multiple complications are more likely exposed to less language. Based on a low rate of reading measured in our NICU, this initiative was designed to target this deficiency. Methods Used A family reading survey used for two-week old infants at home (modified from Before and After Books and Reading Survey and the Stony Brook Family Reading Survey) was adapted for inpatients. The survey, consisting of 22 questions, was given to caretakers of infants in the NICU at >7 days to 2 months' time period. The R.E.A.D. (Read to, Enjoy, And Develop) Your Baby program was developed to promote shared reading and educate parents about the importance of language. The campaign consists of giving baby books to families with an infant in the NICU >7 days and bi-weekly for chronically hospitalized infants. Books were made available by the Reach Out and Read Program and by acquisition using a regional grant fund. Using historical cohorts, the survey was given to parents before and after instituting the R.E.A.D. Your Baby program. Comparisons of proportions of parents reporting reading or verbalizing activity was analyzed using N-1 two proportion test. Summary of Results The initial survey was conducted with 50 families in 2019;the post-intervention survey collection is still ongoing and currently 12 families have participated. Demographic data of caretakers are included in Table 1. One item asked parents to name three favorite activities to do with your baby in the NICU by free text-25.2% (37/150) responses centered about language (talking, singing, or reading) in the pre-phase;41.7% (15/36) provided language responses (p=0.024) in the post-intervention phase. Reading represented 5.3% (8/150) of responses in the pre-phase, whereas it represented 13.9% (5/36) of the responses in the post-phase, p=0.00001. A multiple-choice question later asked do you read to your baby in the NICU? in which 22% (11/50) of parents answered yes in the pre-phase;91.7% (11/12) respondents answered yes in the post-phase, p=0.00000. Conclusions Shared reading was occurring for a minority of infants in our urban-setting NICU before the R.E.A.D. Your Baby campaign. Initially we had aimed to improve the reading rate to 50%. Already in the early stages of surveying postintervention, a remarkable increase has been observed. One confounding factor may be a long interval of time between pre- and post-intervention (which was mostly due to the Covid-19 pandemic);another factor may be higher number of parents with education beyond high school in the post-phase. Beyond exposing infants to language in the NICU, additional benefits of reading together likely include promoting parentinfant bonding, providing parental stress coping techniques, and priming for continued reading at home. (Table Presented).