Parental sensitivity is the interaction process by which parents (a) recognize cues of their infant, (b) interpret these cues adequately, (c) identify an appropriate response and (d) apply this response in an appropriate time frame [
1]. Parental sensitivity predicts long-term attachment [
2] which needs to develop on a long-term basis [
3]. Parental attachment also plays a role in enhancing long-term neurological development in infants [
4,
5]. However, it is well known that parental sensitivity can be compromised in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) for several reasons, such as the high amount of stress parents have to go through during their preterm infant’s hospitalization [
2] and the loss of their parental role [
6]. These factors result in constraining parents from participating in their preterm infant’s care and contribute to their loss of parental confidence [
7]. Parents of preterm infants hospitalized in the NICU often report a need to have physical contacts with their infant and a desire to participate in their infant’s care [
8]. Such parents also report the need for support to be able to do so [
8]. Therefore, interventions to promote parental sensitivity during NICU hospitalization, as well as enhance neurological development in these infants, have been developed and evaluated in experimental or quasi-experimental studies. In fact, a systematic review and meta-analysis of 25 randomized controlled trials (RCT) examining the effect of early interventions aimed at enhancing parental involvement in their preterm infant’s care show an overall positive effect on the preterm infant’s neurological development lasting up to 36 months of corrected age [
9]. More specifically, a systematic review and meta-analysis were conducted in 2003 examining the effect of early interventions to promote parental sensitivity in parents of preterm and term infants [
3] and show that a wide range of early parental interventions promoting parental sensitivity can be effective in enhancing long-term attachment [
3]. For example, interventions using video feedback appear to be more effective than any other types of interventions [
3]. A major drawback has been that term and preterm infants were not separated in the meta-analysis and studies included in the review were mainly conducted with a term infant population. As a result, the conclusions drawn from this meta-analysis [
3] are not generalizable to guide the development of interventions to promote the use of parental sensitivity programmes for parents following a preterm birth. Benzies and colleagues [
10] also published a systematic review and meta-analysis looking at effects of early interventions for preterm infants involving parents, where sensitivity has been reported as a parental outcome. The meta-analysis including six studies shows no significant results favouring the interventions. Although these results are of interest, studies included in the meta-analysis do not extensively report the components of the interventions. Also, more RCTs focused on these types of interventions reporting parental sensitivity as an outcome have been published and are not included in the meta-analysis. Results of such a systematic review including more studies evaluating interventions promoting parental sensitivity following preterm birth would guide the neonatal clinical practice and research to promote parental sensitivity and, hence, parent-infant attachment and neurological development of preterm infants. Therefore, the aim of this systematic review is to evaluate the effectiveness of early interventions promoting parental sensitivity of parents of preterm infants during NICU hospitalization.