The needs of parents of hospitalised children in Australia

Abstract

The aim of this study was to compare the perceptions of needs held byparents of hospitalized children with those held by the staff caring forthem. Family-centred care is a central tenet of paediatrics and shouldencompass all aspects of the child and family?s experience of hospitalization.Important to this are the needs of parents when their children arehospitalized. A widely used and validated tool was used with a conveniencesample in paediatric facilities in a children?s hospital in Australia. Somedifferences were found between parents and staff for scores for perceivedimportance of the 51 needs included in the questionnaire, and whether ornot they were being met satisfactorily during children?s hospital admission,although there were no consistent patterns. Parents declared themselvesmore independent than the staff perceived them to be. These findingsfacilitate improvements in communication between parents and staff andcan be included in education programmes for both.