Introduction:

Considering the related environmental and psychosocial factors, the hospitalization of premature newborns in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) constitutes a stressful event for the parents; because of this, the estimation of the degree of this stress, by means of adapted and validated instruments, can help establishing a more precise protocol approach to address the problem.

Objective:

Culturally adapt and validate the Parental Stress Scale: Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (PSS: NICU) for application in a group of Mexican mothers and fathers.

Methods:

This is a descriptive and transversal study on a by-intention sample of 130 parents of premature newborns hospitalized in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. The associated parent stress was estimated using the PSS: NICU, which was adapted and validated to Mexican parents. Data were processed using SPSS v.24.

Results:

The instrument, which was adapted to the mexican population, showed an internal consistency of 0.945, demonstrating sound reliability. The average total parental stress was 2.48 ± 0.986, which was considered as fairly stressful.

Conclusions:

The cultural adaptation and validation of the PSS: NICU, to the Mexican population, resulted in a valid and reliable tool which can be used in Mexican parents. The factor with the highest association to the level of stress was Alteration to the Parental Role. Therefore, it is important to establish interventions aimed at improving the emotional status of parents undergoing this kind of stressful events.