Coping strategies for chronically ill children and adolescents facing the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lívia Lopes Custódio, Débora Cristina Couto Oliveira Costa, Cláudia Patrícia da Silva Ribeiro Menezes and 5 others
PMID 38088660WHAT IT FOUND
Chronically ill children and adolescents described isolation as sad and unable to play.
Some coped through family, spirituality, cooking or reading; others showed no coping strategy. Their accounts can guide supportive care, not prove a strategy works.
Key findings
01Participants described staying at home and being unable to play.
02Coping strategies included spirituality, family support, and learning to cook or read.
03Some participants did not demonstrate coping strategies in their speech or drawings.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
Only six participants were studied, recruited by convenience from an outpatient clinic, so the themes may not apply to other children or settings. No audio or video recordings were made, and the researcher wrote down what participants said, which may have missed detail. Participants were not given the transcripts or results to check or correct. Children who had difficulty understanding instructions or expressing ideas were excluded, so children with more severe communication or developmental limitations were not represented. The study took place during the pandemic before all people were vaccinated, and isolation restrictions limited the number of participants and prolonged the study time.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the children's coping strategies as evidence that family, spirituality, cooking, or reading will improve health outcomes. The study only described what six children said and drew during isolation, and it did not test whether these strategies helped.