Application of social learning theory to teaching ostomy care to parents of infants with ostomies.

Intestinal stomas are created in infants for a variety of conditions. A neonatal defect or illness has an intense emotional impact on the parents. The ET nurse is challenged to develop a teaching plan that integrates routine physical care of the infant with supportive emotional care for the parents to promote normal parent-infant attachment, effective coping, and normal growth and development of the infant with special needs. Bandura's Social Learning Theory provides the theoretic rationale for the plan of care developed in this article.