Capturing children's voices for quality improvement

Linda Lindeke1, Miyuki Nakai, Lauren Johnson

  • 1School of Nursing, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA. linde001@umn.edu

Insights

Children

Area of Science:

  • Pediatric Healthcare
  • Patient Experience Research
  • Child Development

Background:

  • Improving inpatient care requires understanding children's perspectives.
  • Current quality assessments often overlook direct child input.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To gather children's perceptions of their inpatient healthcare experiences.
  • To inform developmentally appropriate and responsive care improvements.

Main Methods:

  • Interviewed 120 children at discharge from a tertiary care unit.
  • Used content analysis to compare responses by developmental level.
  • Identified key themes and ensured data trustworthiness through co-coding.

Main Results:

  • Children identified pain and discomfort as the worst aspects of hospitalization.
  • Play activities and positive staff relationships were highly valued.
  • Response specificity varied with children's developmental stages.

Conclusions:

  • Children's unique insights are crucial for quality assessment and care improvement.
  • Regularly soliciting children's perspectives can enhance healthcare quality.
  • Excluding children's voices leads to missed opportunities for better care.
Abstract

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