Scientific Journal of Nursing, Midwifery and Paramedical Faculty

Background and Aim: premature birth and its caring is a stressful period which significantly affects the quality of parent’s life especially the mother. A study was conducted to compare the quality of life of mothers of premature infant and full-term infant.

Methods: This case-control study was conducted in health centers of Sanandaj city in 2013.

 The participants were 50 mothers with premature infant as intervention group and 50 mothers with full-term infant as the control group.In order to collect data, researcher made demographic questionnaire and the 36 item quality of life of WHO were used. Data analysis was performed using the software spss17.

Findings: The demographic characteristics of the mothers in both groups were not statistically significant. Mothers of premature infant have a lower quality of life scores in the areas of health, social relations and the total score compared with mothers of full-term infant (P=0/001). In the area of environmental health and mental health the mean of quality of life scores in the two groups showed no significant difference (P = 0/715).

Conclusion: considering the low quality of life of mothers of premature infant, health care providers should be sensitive towards the educational and emotional needs of these mothers so that necessary intervention could be done during caring of their infant.