Family-Centred Care: Effective Care Delivery or Sacred Cow?

Abstract

Family-centred care as a way to care for children in hospitals has become ubiquitous in the world of paediatrics. It evolved from work of pioneers in theories of maternal and child attachment, and paralleled the evolution of paediatric nursing as an academic (and evidence generating) discipline. However, in the last decade, doubts have been sewn as to its efficacy and workability, due to the lack of rigorous evidence about whether or not it works, or as to whether or not it makes a difference to the children and families for whom it is purported to care. This paper examines the historical evolution of family-centred care, discusses the current research about it, and poses questions around the ethics of continuing to use a model around which so many questions are generated.