en General پژوهشي Research Article <div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><strong>Background: </strong>The hospitalization of premature neonates in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) is very stressful for parents.<br> <strong>Objectives:</strong> This study aimed to assess the stressors in parents of premature neonates hospitalized at the NICU in Ali-Ibn-Abitaleb Hospital of Rafsanjan, Kerman, Iran, within November 2020 to September 2021.<br> <strong>Methods:</strong> This cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted at the NICU of Ali-Ibn-Abitaleb Hospital of Rafsanjan. A total of 204 parents with premature neonates admitted to the NICU were selected by the convenience sampling method. The data collection tool was a demographic data form and the Parental Stress Scale: Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. The data were analyzed using descriptive and analytic statistic tests, such as the one-sample&nbsp;t-test, by SPSS software (version 22).<br> <strong>Results: </strong>The most stressful item was in the &ldquo;sights and sounds&rdquo; domain belonging to &ldquo;sudden alarm noises&rdquo; for both parents, and &ldquo;needles and tubes put in&rdquo; in the &ldquo;neonate&rsquo;s behavior&rdquo; domain. The major causes of stress in &ldquo;parental role alterations&rdquo; subscales were relevant to &ldquo;feeling helpless about how to help neonate&rdquo; and &ldquo;being separated from neonate&rdquo; in fathers and mothers, respectively. The comparison of parental stress scores in the total scale for mothers and fathers showed that mothers had higher stress scores in &ldquo;sights and sounds&rdquo; and &ldquo;neonate&rsquo;s behavior&rdquo; domains; however, fathers&rsquo; scores were higher in &ldquo;parental role alterations&rdquo; without any significant differences (P > 0.05).<br> <strong>Conclusions:</strong> Parents of premature neonates deal with NICU stress levels. Nurses&rsquo; manners concerning parents play a major role in handling the stressed situation.</span></span></div> NICU,Neonates,PSS,Stressors,Parents 0 0 http://mcj.bums.ac.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-1-244&slc_lang=en&sid=1 Narjes Soltani 10031947532846005165 10031947532846005165 No Non-communicable Diseases Research Center, Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences, Rafsanjan, Iran Reza Derakhshan 10031947532846005166 10031947532846005166 No Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran Azadeh Moghadam 10031947532846005167 10031947532846005167 No Department of Pediatric Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences, Rafsanjan, Iran Tabandeh Sadeghi t.b_sadeghi@yahoo.com 10031947532846005168 10031947532846005168 Yes Non-communicable Diseases Research Center, Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences, Rafsanjan, Iran