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What do children think about doctors' communication at the Teddy Bear Hospital?
David Edward Moore1, Andrew White1, Brigid Jordan1
1Department of Paediatrics, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Insights
Children reported positive interactions at Teddy Bear Hospital (TBH) events. However, medical students need improved communication training, as children often misunderstood teddy bear health issues and treatment plans.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric communication skills development
- Medical education innovation
- Child healthcare interaction analysis
Background:
- Effective communication is crucial for healthcare professionals interacting with children.
- Teddy Bear Hospital (TBH) initiatives offer a unique platform for training pediatric communication skills.
- Understanding the child's perspective is key to refining these training methods.
Purpose of the Study:
- To explore children's perceptions of medical students' communication during TBH events.
- To assess the effectiveness of TBH in developing pediatric communication skills in medical students.
- To identify areas for improvement in communication training for medical students working with young children.
Main Methods:
- Conducted semi-structured interviews with 31 children aged 3-8 years at a TBH event.
- Utilized inductive content analysis with NVivo 12 software for theme generation.
- Interviews were recorded and transcribed for detailed analysis.
Main Results:
- Children generally used positive language to describe interactions with 'teddy doctors'.
- Nearly half of the children could not recall explanations regarding their teddy's illness or recovery plan.
- A significant number of teddy bears presented with different medical issues post-TBH visit compared to their initial presentation.
Conclusions:
- While TBH interactions were perceived positively by children, communication gaps exist.
- The study highlights a need for enhanced, evidence-based communication training for medical students.
- Improvements are necessary to ensure medical students can effectively communicate health management plans to very young children.
Aim:
Excellent communication is essential for health professionals working with children. Teddy Bear Hospital (TBH) is an innovative method of developing paediatric communication skills in health-care students. By exploring the child's perspective of medical students' communication at the TBH, we sought to better understand the role TBH plays in the development of the communication skills in medical students.
Methods:
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 31 children, aged 3-8 years old, who were attending a TBH run by third year medical students at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne. These interviews were recorded and transcribed after which themes were generated by inductive content analysis using the programme NVivo 12.
Results:
Children used mostly positive language when describing interactions with teddy doctors. However, almost half of the children could not recall the medical students explaining why their teddy was sick or how their teddy would get better. Furthermore, many teddies returned from TBH with medical issues different to their initial presentation.
Conclusions:
The communication described at TBH was overwhelmingly positive with children describing little difference between medical students and actual doctors. However, the mismatch in teddy medical issues before and after a visit to TBH along with the lack of understanding on teddy health management plans, suggests the need for further evidence-based training in communication skills for medical students to improve their ability to communicate with very young children.
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