Families' perceptions of given information in relation to their child's head injury

Information and effective communication is an essential element in treating children in hospital. Researches have shown that parents who are well informed and well prepared were less anxious, a fact that was found to decrease the child's level of stress. Studies in the head injury population reveal that not only patients but their families need support such as general information about a head injury but also individual support, independent of the severity of the head injury.

To describe the families' perceptions of information provided in relation to a head injury during their visit at the emergency department at Astrid Lindgren children's hospital.

Retrospective, descriptive study.

Postal questionnaires at 3 months posthead injury.

There were 96 families that participated, 51 families with children <5 years and 45 families with children >5 years. Eighty-five per cent of all families understood the information concerning head injury they had been given during the visit to the emergency department. However, only 69% received the information they needed about head injury in children before discharge from the emergency department. There were significant differences between the two age groups as to whether or not the information was addressed to the child or that the information was age appropriate. The results from our study should be interpreted with caution because of the relatively low number of respondents and the fact that the study was conducted using a questionnaire. Another limitation is the fact that we asked for the information 3 months posthead injury.

Most families do understand the information that was provided and they also generally received the information they needed. However, they had not received information about common symptoms after a head injury. Strategies to improve information to families who experience a childhood head injury therefore seem necessary.