Paper
Friday, 21 July 2006
This presentation is part of : Models for Child and Adolescent Healthcare Issues
Partnership with Parents/Families: An Intervention Model
Jocelyne Tourigny, PhD, Nursing, University of Ottawa, School of Nursing, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Learning Objective #1: identify some elements of an intervention model based on partnership with parents/families.
Learning Objective #2: link up these elements with their own practice in pediatric care
The purpose of this research program is to build and evaluate an intervention model aimed at promoting parents’ involvement in their child’s ambulatory care. This program is based on an extensive literature review, on clinical experience and on research. The first step looked at parents’ beliefs, attitudes and abilities towards their participation in their child’s care. Research showed that parents want to be involved and strongly believe that they can do it; observation of their behaviours at the hospital showed that their participation is limited to affective care. Parents identified some environmental factors, such as lack of information and lack of access to material, as barriers to their participation. Nursing staff were perceived both as facilitators and barriers to parents’ involvement in care. The next step examined professionals’ beliefs and attitudes towards parents’ involvement in child’s care. A pilot study done in Canada and Belgium showed that health professionals, physicians and nurses, shared similar views. They identified many advantages such as “reassuring for child and parents, providing a better understanding of treatment and increasing compliance in care”. Besides lack of space and time, barriers identified were mostly related to “parents’ inability or negative behaviours”. Factors identified as facilitators were again related to parents’ attitude with information for parents and education sessions for professionals also mentioned. The next step is to implement and evaluate an intervention model, through education and modification of environment, that will promote parents’ involvement in child’s ambulatory care. These interventions may positively have an impact on child health status, family quality of care, morbidity, hospitalization and utilization of health care services.

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See more of The 17th International Nursing Research Congress Focusing on Evidence-Based Practice (19-22 July 2006)