Identifying the Needs of Paediatric-Friendly Care in Emergency Department: A Delphi Study

To systematically analyse expert perspectives on paediatric-friendly care in the emergency department and establish specific indicators.

With an increasing number of children seeking emergency care, nurses must understand the specific needs of paediatric patients and their families.

A two-round modified Delphi method was used in this study.

In this study, experts from clinical practice and academia assessed 56 paediatric-friendly care criteria in the emergency department. Data were collected to establish a consensus and ensure content validity.

Thirty experts completed two survey rounds with response rates of 100% and 93.3%, respectively. In the initial survey, no consensus was reached for eight items. After the items were consolidated, 37 paediatric emergency-friendly care needs were identified. For each need, the item-level content validity index exceeded 0.79 for importance and feasibility. The average scale-level content validity index values were 0.95 and 0.92 for importance and feasibility. These needs were categorised into six dimensions: timely comfort (3 items), emotional care (5 items), frontline safety (11 items), emergency response (10 items), human resources support (5 items) and treatment efficiency (3 items).

Paediatric emergency nurses play a vital role in caring for children, improving soft skills through compassion and training and ensuring a well-equipped, safe environment in the emergency department.

This study offers valuable insights for emergency department nurses on the needs of children and their families, emphasising the importance of patient and family education, environmental considerations and the role of certified child life specialists in supporting the emergency healthcare team and ensuring appropriate paediatric care.

No direct patient, service user, caregiver or public involvement existed in this study.