Essential Knowledge and Competencies for Psychologists Working in Neonatal Intensive Care Units
- PDF / 654,406 Bytes
- 12 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 4 Downloads / 178 Views
Essential Knowledge and Competencies for Psychologists Working in Neonatal Intensive Care Units Sage N. Saxton1 · Allison G. Dempsey2 · Tiffany Willis3 · Amy E. Baughcum4,5 · Lacy Chavis6 · Casey Hoffman7 · Celia J. Fulco8 · Cheryl A. Milford9 · Zina Steinberg10
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019
Abstract A training and competencies workgroup was created with the goal of identifying guidelines for essential knowledge and skills of psychologists working in neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) settings. This manuscript reviews the aspirational model of the knowledge and skills of psychologists working in NICUs across six clusters: Science, Systems, Professionalism, Relationships, Application, and Education. The purpose of these guidelines is to identify key competencies that direct the practice of neonatal psychologists, with the goal of informing the training of future neonatal psychologists. Neonatal psychologists need specialized training that goes beyond the basic competencies of a psychologist and includes a wide range of learning across multiple domains, such as perinatal mental health, family-centered care, and infant development. Achieving competency will enable the novice neonatal psychologist to successfully transition into a highly complex, medical, fast-paced, often changing environment, and ultimately provide the best care for their young patients and families. Keywords NICU · Psychologist · Competence · Education · Training As the emotional and behavioral components of medical illness have gained greater attention, psychologists have found a home in many integrative medical disciplines. Neonatology, a relatively new subspecialty, is following suit and beginning to incorporate psychologists in both neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) and affiliated clinics. The United States did not have its first official NICU until 1965 at Yale-New Haven Hospital, but by the early 1970s, every state in the country had at least one hospitalbased NICU (Rojas, 2012). Initially, the role of neonatal
psychologists—those working with infants with high medical acuity- was primarily focused on developmental followup after NICU discharge to determine how early medical issues and the NICU environment impacted infant development. Over time, the role of neonatal psychologists expanded into the NICU to provide services addressing developmental care, caregiver mental health, infant-caregiver attachment behavior, and staff education and support. The neonatal psychologist is increasingly being seen as providing vital and valuable mental health and developmental support services
* Sage N. Saxton [email protected]
5
Department of Pediatrics, The Ohio State University College of Medicine, Columbus, OH, USA
6
Department of Psychology and Neuropsychology, Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, St. Petersburg, FL, USA
7
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA
8
Department of Psychology, C
Data Loading...
