Chinese nurses' perspectives on child-friendly healthcare practice assessment: a qualitative study

Nurses play a critical role in the implementation of child-friendly healthcare, ensuring that pediatric patients receive comprehensive and compassionate services. However, there is a global scarcity of research evaluating nurses' practices in delivering child-friendly healthcare. Therefore, this study focuses on exploring the assessment of child-friendly healthcare practices from the perspective of nurses themselves.

This descriptive qualitative study employed purposive and snowball sampling methods to recruit 14 pediatric nurses from six hospitals in Zhejiang province, Southeast China. Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted face-to-face between January and June 2024. Data were analyzed through the qualitative content analysis approach.

We identified 415 unique meaning units in the interview data, 332 of which were related to child-friendly healthcare practice assessment. These units were classified into 58 codes across 4 categories and 17 subcategories. The four categories were identified: services designed for children's interests, tailoring the environment adapted for children, facilitating social interactions, and promoting childhood development.

The findings from this study were derived from the perspectives of Chinese nurses on child-friendly healthcare practice assessment, offering a comprehensive and multidimensional view of this field. The results reflect the current state and future direction of child-friendly healthcare in China, which will aid in sustaining the development of a child-friendly healthcare evaluation system.