Paper
Friday, 21 July 2006
This presentation is part of : Initiatives for Child and Adolescent Health Issues
Children's Satisfaction of Nursing Activities During Hospitalization
Tiina Pelander, RN, MNSc and Helena Leino-Kilpi, PhD. Department of Nursing Science, University of Turku, Turku, Finland
Learning Objective #1: know how school age children evaluate nurses activitites during hospitalization.
Learning Objective #2: know how to improve the pediatric nursing care from children's perspective.
Objective of the study: To describe children’s ratings of nursing activities during hospitalization. The ultimate goal is to use the results improving the quality of pediatric nursing care from children’s perspective. Background: Assessments of the quality of pediatric nursing care usually based on parents’ evaluations, not children themselves. Method, Settings and Sample: Data were collected using a new self-developed instrument named the Child Care Quality at Hospital (CCQH) at all five university hospitals in Finland. The sample consisted of 388 school age children from 7 to 11 years old at least one overnight stayed at hospital. There were 28 items about nursing activities with 5 subcategories: entertainment, caring and communication, supporting initiative, educational and physical care and treatment. Responses were obtained on a three point Likert scale measuring the frequency with words and face pictures. Analysis: Statistical analysis. Findings: Children gave the best ratings for caring and communication activities, the three highest were nurse helps (mean 2.94), listens (mean 2.82) and protects intimacy (mean 2.81). Children identified problems with entertainment activities like nurse plays with children gave the lowest mean 1.36 and also talks about interesting things (mean 2.12). However children were satisfied with nurses’ physical care and treatment activities especially nurse pain management (mean 2.79) and information that is easy to understand (mean 2.67). Conclusions: Overall children were satisfied with nursing activities but nurses should devote more time and effort to entertainment because is an integral part of children’ everyday life. Play should be more closely integrated in nursing activities like daily routines or preparing children invasive procedures or painful situations. The findings supported children ability to provide valuable perceptions about care that can inform clinic improvement processes.

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