How Adults Make Meaning of a Childhood Hospitalisation That Excluded Their Parents: A Retrospective Study

Parents were routinely excluded when a child was hospitalised, a practice that continued from the end of the 19th century until the mid-20th century. The inclusion of parents became more frequent in the period leading up to the 1970s and 1980s, marking a gradual change from previous practice. Children whose parents were excluded during a hospitalisation were in a vulnerable situation. Today, those children are adults, and some have died. This study explores how these adults find meaning in their past experiences of having been hospitalised as children without their parents.

The study employed a qualitative design with a hermeneutic phenomenological approach. Eleven adults provided written narratives.

The findings show that the participants' adult lives are characterised to varying degrees by attachment and separation challenges. They also vacillate between trust and mistrust and have issues related to loneliness as a companion, being vulnerable, mastery of vulnerability and a life with physical limitations.

To varying degrees, the participants linked their emotional challenges to having been hospitalised without their parents when they were children. The majority described their adult lives as being different from the lives of other people, who do not have similar feelings.