Audio recordings of consultations with doctors for parents of critically sick babies

Background Family centred care is an important part of neonatal intensive care. Ensuring effective communication in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) is a challenge but is crucial to the implementation of family centred care. Providing parents in NICU with audiotape recordings of their conversations with neonatologists could promote effective communication. Objectives The objective of this review was to assess the usefulness of providing parents of sick babies with audiotape recordings of their consultations with neonatologists. Search methods The standard search strategy of the Cochrane Neonatal Review Group was used. This included searches of electronic databases: Oxford Database of Perinatal Trials, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL, The Cochrane Library Issue 3, 2004), and MEDLINE (1966 ‐ February 2004); and previous reviews including cross references and expert informants. There were no language restrictions applied to the electronic searches. Hand searching of conference and symposia proceedings was restricted to the English language. Selection criteria Randomised or quasi‐randomised trials of any form of providing parents of babies in NICU with audiotape recordings of their conversation with doctors in the NICU. Data collection and analysis Four reviewers independently assessed the eligibility of the trials. Main results Our searches did not identify any trials which met the eligibility criteria. Authors' conclusions There is no information available from randomised or quasi‐randomised trials to demonstrate any benefits from providing parents in NICU with audiotape recordings of their conversations with neonatologists.