Article
Recovery of injured children: parent perspectives on family needs1,

Presented as an abstract at the Pediatric Academic Society’s meeting, May 5, 2003, Seattle, WA.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apmr.2003.06.018Get rights and content

Abstract

Aitken ME, Mele N, Barrett KW. Recovery of injured children: parent perspectives on family needs. Arch Phys Med Rehabil 2004;85:567–73.

Objective

To study the broader impact of emotional and financial burdens of injury in children on their families, along with solutions to these problems.

Design

Focus groups were conducted to reveal the needs of parents and children after injury. Audiotaped semistructured interviews were conducted by a team of qualitative researchers.

Setting

Tertiary care children’s hospital.

Participants

Mothers of children who had sustained traumatic injury.

Interventions

Not applicable.

Main outcome measures

Summary of reported themes of experience and suggested interventions. Data were analyzed by using content analysis software.

Results

Overall satisfaction with care was high. Parents expressed concerns with communication, access to care, and the transition both within the phases of medical care and from medical care into the community. Consistent financial and social stressors were voiced, along with the need for peer support during all phases of care.

Conclusions

Parents provided valuable insight into their needs after their child’s injury. Attention to constructive communication, clarification of the system of care, continued family-centered care, and development of peer support programs may meet the needs of caregivers and therefore facilitate improvement in pediatric injury recovery.

Section snippets

Design, setting, and informants

Data presented here were collected as a follow-up to a larger, longitudinal cohort study that examined the acute care and rehabilitation experiences of families whose child had experienced a traumatic injury that required hospitalization at a large tertiary children’s hospital. Families in the cohort study completed a battery of health status assessments at discharge and at 1 and 6 months after hospital discharge. Quantitative results of the cohort study provoked the research team to seek an

Satisfaction with hospital experience

Most families were very satisfied with the hospital experience. There was a general sense of gratitude for clinical care received, and relief in the recovery of the children. The following dialogue among 3 parents (P1, P2, P3) supports this finding:

P1: “I brag on [the hospital] all the time.”

P2: “Yeah, I do too. We had a really good experience. Even though it was a terrible tragedy, we had a real good experience.”

P3: “They made it … it was a tragedy, but they [hospital staff] made it easier on

Discussion

Objective scales measuring health status and functional status in children are extremely valuable in determining the overall impact of injury and other conditions over time, especially because the few studies that have evaluated these impacts have shown considerable family burden and decreased quality of life (QOL) for patients. Such measures, however, can provide only part of the information needed to develop interventions appropriate to the needs of affected families. This focus group study

Conclusions

Parents provide valuable insight into their needs at different times after their child’s injury. Careful attention to constructive patient-provider communication, clarification of the system of care, continued emphasis on family-centered care, and development of peer support programs for families may help support caregivers and therefore facilitate improvement in pediatric injury recovery.

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    Supported by the Bureau of Maternal and Child Health (grant no. MCH 054003-01-0) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (grant no. 033946).

    1

    No commercial party having a direct financial interest in the results of the research supporting this article has or will confer a benefit upon the authors(s) or upon any organization with which the author(s) is/are associated.

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