Date created: | Last Updated:

Category: Project

Description: Introduction: The highly technological environment existing in neonatal intensive care units, which is essential for survival, contributes as a potential devastating and traumatic effect on preterm newborns and their future lives, due to the early and frequent exposure to multiple stressors. The preterm newborn should be observed in a repetitive and structured way, before, during and after any intervention, as also the correct assessment and interpretation of his behavior and signs of stress, to planning stress minimizing and preventive interventions. Objective: to mapping the tools that will allow to choose the most appropriate and available tool to measure neonatal stress in NICU. Methodology: This protocol follows the guidelines of “The Joanna Briggs Institute” (2020) and “PRISMA ScR” (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyzes extended for Scoping Reviews) model, for structuring the information collected. The research will be carried out in three distinct phases supported by the Medline, CINALH, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials databases through the EBSCO, ScienceDirect, Wiley Online Library and Scielo and PubMed platforms. The extracted data will be organised in the extraction table. Discussion: The mapping of the tools in this review will allow to summarize all instruments, to choose the most appropriate tool. Keywords: preterm infant, stress, assessment, NICU.