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The experience of school-aged children with hospitalisation
Fernanda Manuela Loureiro1, Ana Vanessa Dos Reis Ameixa Antunes1, Tiina Pelander2
1Centro de Investigação Interdisciplinar Egas Moniz (CiiEM), Escola Superior de Saúde Egas Moniz, Almada, Portugal.
Insights
School-aged children value positive interactions with people and engaging activities during hospital stays. Understanding these best and worst experiences can improve pediatric patient care and nursing support.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Nursing
- Child Psychology
- Healthcare Experience Research
Background:
- Limited research exists on children's hospitalization experiences from their own perspective.
- Traditional studies primarily focus on parental experiences during child hospitalization.
Purpose of the Study:
- To identify the best and worst aspects of hospitalization from the viewpoint of school-aged children.
- To inform improvements in nursing care for children and their parents during hospital stays.
Main Methods:
- Cross-sectional, observational, and descriptive exploratory design.
- Paper survey administered to 252 school-aged children with open-ended questions.
- Content analysis of children's responses regarding hospital experiences.
Main Results:
- Best experiences included 'people,' 'physical environment,' 'activities,' 'outcomes,' and 'food.'
- Worst experiences comprised 'feelings,' 'activities,' 'food,' 'environment,' and 'outcomes.'
Conclusions:
- Identified key aspects of hospitalization that are most valued by children.
- Results offer insights for healthcare professionals to enhance the hospital experience for pediatric patients.
Aims And Objectives:
This study intended to contribute to the improvement of nursing care for both children and their parents and aimed to identify the best and worst experiences of school-aged children during hospitalisation.
Background:
Child hospitalisation has traditionally been studied from the parent's perspective, but studies in which the child is the subject are scarce and mainly focus on to the hospitalisation experiences.
Design:
A cross-sectional, observational and descriptive exploratory design was used, and STROBE reporting guidelines were followed.
Methods:
A paper survey was applied by the primary researcher within a 3 months period to 252 children. It presented two open-ended statements: 'In my opinion the best thing about the hospital is …' and 'In my opinion the worst thing about the hospital is…'. The study was submitted and approved by the national data protection commission and also by the ethics committees of each of the six institutions where the study was undertaken. Informed consent was also obtained from children and parents.
Results:
Answers were analysed through content analysis. Five categories were identified for each of the open-ended statements. Children identified 'people', 'physical environment', 'activities', 'outcomes' and 'food' as best experiences. The worst experiences included: 'feelings', 'activities', 'food', 'environment' and 'outcomes'.
Conclusions:
The results allowed the identification of the children's most valued aspects of hospitalisation.
Relevance To Clinical Practice:
The results should be considered by healthcare professionals in order to make the hospitalisation experience more positive from the perspective of the school-aged children.
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