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study, and therefore the parents may have felt uncomfortable criticising the providers of their infants care; alternately, it could reflect a change in the attitudes of the nursing personnel towards parents following training in family-centred care. Martinez et al. also conducted surveys with 212 health care providers, exploring their perceptions of barriers in providing care. The surveys undertaken with health care providers in Vietnam (n = 63) highlighted a lack of nursing staff as a concern to providing more aggressive treatment on the neonatal unit [21]. While this was reported by nurses in our study, we also found that parents felt that there should be more staff to help mothers care for their infant. Reports by the nurses that parents should help support them to care for the infants also suggests a need for more nursing support on the neonatal unit. Health care providers cited a lack of staff training as impacting the provision of neonatal care in the study by Martinez et al. [21], which is emphasised by our own study in which the nurse highlight their sense of pride from their training through increased knowledge, impact upon practice and improved infant care. This suggests that implementing an educational intervention can build staff confidence, lead to an increased sense of professional identity, and help nursing staff to perform their role. A systematic review of motivation and retention of health workers in developing countries found that career development, educational opportunities and recognition from managers were major motivational themes [22]. The Human Development Report from the United Nations suggests better job opportunities through education and development could result in a more engaged workforce who are more efficient, helping in turn to maintain and raise the standards of their care as a source of pride [23]. This area requires further research to determine whether a more educated and motivated nursing workforce may facilitate a reduction in infant mortality. The majority of research undertaken in the neonatal context in Vietnam focuses on causes of infant mortality and morbidity [4, 5, 24, 25], implementation and outcomes of community-based interventions [8, 26, 27] and the knowledge base of health care staff [6, 7]. The results from these studies collectively suggest that knowledge transfer and resulting practice change may be hugely important factors in reducing infant mortality. Identification of areas of knowledge improvement such as infection control, symptom recognition and temperature control are highlighted across many of the studies.