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To synthesize existing qualitative findings about fathers’ experiences of the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) environment.

Relevant key terms including preterm, father, and NICU were used to search the databases of CINAHL Plus, Academic Search Premier, MEDLINE, and PsychInfo.

Only primary qualitative studies were included. Studies were excluded that did not focus on the NICU environment.

Twenty‐four studies were included. All authors critically appraised and extracted data relating to fathers’ experiences in the NICU using an agreed data extraction form.

Findings were synthesized by translating the initial concepts and findings from an identified key paper into the data from the remaining 23 studies. Initially this was done separately by each author followed by further group discussion and synthesis. Emergent themes included Proximity …