Korean J Child Health Nurs.  1999 Feb;5(1):59-69.

Nursing Needs of Parents with Hospitalized Child

• Seo YM
• Kwon IS
• Cho MO
• Choi WJ

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to identify nursing needs of parents who have hospitalized child. Research design is a descriptive survey. The subjects for the study were 79 parents who have hospitalized child at a pediatric ward of one of the general hospital attached to a university in J city. The data was collected by researchers using a structured questionnaire. The questionnaire was Liken type 5 point scale, composed of 5 categories with 61 items. The data was analyzed by SPSS/PC. The results of the study were as follows : 1) Mean score of nursing needs of subjects were 3.93 at 2nd day of admission and 3.99 at 7th day of ad mission. 2) Among the categories, the highest nursing need at the 2nd day and 7th day of admission was 'direct nursing', in desending order, 'facilities and environment', 'education and counseling', 'nursing assessment'. The lowest nursing need was 'reference'. 3) Differences between the nursing needs of subjects at 2nd day and 7th day were as follows ; (1) By categories, there was a significant difference only in the 'reference' category(t=2.74, P=.008). (2) By items, there were significant differences in items of 'to check necessary materials(t=2.31, P=.024)', 'to understand family function and family relationship(t=2.12. P=.041), 'to set up study room(t=2.22, P=.030)', and 'to mediate parent's meeting group(t=3.89, P=.000)'. The above result indicated that nursing needs of parents with hospitalized child were above average, especially very high in items about disease process, and items directly associated with treatment and nursing care. So, nurses have to focus on information about the patient's state of disease, treatment, test and procedure, and in efficiently giving direct nursing care to implement more effective care for the hospitalized children and their parents. And some future research is needed to identify the difference of degree of nursing needs of parents with hospitalized child according to admission duration using a different sample and a longer sampling interval.

MeSH Terms

Child
Child, Hospitalized*
Hospitals, General
Humans
Missions and Missionaries
Nursing Care
Nursing*
Parents*
Research Design
Child Health
Surveys and Questionnaires