Pediatric nurses may misjudge parent communication preferences

Elisa J Sobo1

  • 1Center for Child Health Outcomes, Children's Hospital San Diego, Calif 92103, USA. esobo@chsd.org

Pediatric nurses need an easy way to gauge parents' communication preferences. A tool for this was developed in a series of rapid cycle improvement stages, including focus groups, rapid cognitive interviews, an administration ease test, and a tool utility test. The latter found that two thirds of nurses misjudged parents' communication preferences; half underestimated parents' information desires. Presenting these findings to nurses in a "needs demonstration" meeting was crucial to incorporating the tool as standard patient care.

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