Home-like care: Collaboration between parents and nurses in everyday situations when children are hospitalized.
Hildegunn Sundal
PMID 36606622WHAT IT FOUND
Nurses and parents collaborated on meals, sleep, hygiene and play to keep hospitalized children’s routines familiar.
Nurse involvement shifted from distant to hands-on depending on illness severity, age and parental experience, with parents initiating most care tasks.
Key findings
01Nurses varied their involvement from little to moderate to strong based on disease severity, child age and parents’ hospital experience.
02Parents were the initiators of care tasks and mainly responsible for asking for help, though they sometimes found this challenging when nurses were unavailable.
03When nurses took over tasks like diaper changes due to illness demands, familiar rhythms broke down and children felt less safe, even when parents were exhausted.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
Single-center study in one Norwegian pediatric unit limits transferability to other healthcare systems and cultures Children’s direct perspectives were not included, so findings reflect only adult interpretations of children’s experiences Researcher presence during observations may have altered natural interactions between nurses, parents and children Parents who spoke Norwegian as first language were prioritized, potentially excluding experiences of families needing interpretation
Declared interests
The author declared no conflicts of interest and received no financial support for this research.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the varied nurse involvement as evidence that hands-on nursing care improves child outcomes. This qualitative study describes collaboration patterns but does not measure clinical effects or establish that any particular degree of nurse involvement produces better results than another.