Association of Parental Adverse Childhood Experiences and Parent and Infant Outcomes in Neonatal Intensive Care Units: A Scoping Review

Introduction: Neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) admissions are prevalent and increasing, disproportionately impacting infants of parents with a history of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). The association between parental ACEs and parent and infant outcomes in the NICU has not been explored in previous reviews of the literature. Through a scoping review methodology, the following research questions will be addressed: 1) What, if any, parent or child outcomes in the NICU have been found to be associated with parental ACEs? and 2) What predictors of the relationship between parental ACEs and parent or infant outcomes have been identified? Methods and Analysis: The Arksey and O’Malley (2005) scoping review methodology and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) Checklist (Tricco et al., 2018) will be used. Primary research, qualitative research, mixed methods research, and case studies in English will be included. Cochrane, OVID Medline, Embase, PsycInfo, Scopus, Web of Science, and CINAHL will be searched using keywords related to ACEs generally, the ten specific ACEs included in the original ACEs study (Felitti et al., 1998), parents, and NICU. First, two researchers will independently screen 5% of article titles and abstracts to ensure interrater reliability. The two researchers will then divide remaining titles and abstracts for screening for inclusion in the final stage of review. Both researchers will then review the full text of articles screened for inclusion. Disagreements between reviewers will be resolved by discussion and by consultation with a third researcher if agreement cannot be reached. The two reviewers will extract data on study characteristics and findings. Numerical counts and thematic analysis will be used to summarize data quantitatively and qualitatively, respectively.