Quality of child and adolescent care transitions considering the presence of chronic disease.
Vitória Carolini Gomes, Gabriela Marcellino de Melo Lanzoni, Caroline Cechinel-Peiter and 3 others
PMID 37255187WHAT IT FOUND
Caregivers of children with chronic diseases rated their hospital-to-home transition as higher quality than those of children without.
The weakest area for everyone was understanding medication side effects. Discharge plans must explicitly explain adverse effects and how to act.
Key findings
01The total mean score for care transition quality was 87.9, with patients with chronic diseases scoring 90.0 versus 84.3 for those without.
02The item with the lowest mean score was understanding medication side effects, at 67.8 on a 0-100 scale.
03Factors regarding understanding medications, preferences, and care plans showed significant differences between groups, indicating higher transition quality for patients with chronic disease.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The study was cross-sectional, so it cannot prove that specific nursing actions caused the higher transition scores. Data was collected from tutors (mostly mothers), which may introduce caregiver bias regarding the quality of care received. The study was conducted in two high-complexity reference hospitals in southern Brazil, which may limit generalizability to other settings or lower-acuity hospitals. There were few international or national studies on pediatric care transition for comparison, limiting the context of the findings.
Declared interests
The study was financed in part by CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - Brasil), a public agency. No commercial conflicts of interest were declared.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that a higher transition score for children with chronic diseases means the care was objectively better or that nurses were more competent. It may reflect that these families received more frequent contact, had more time to build relationships with staff, or had more complex needs that triggered more thorough discharge protocols compared to healthy children.