PARENTS’ FEAR AND DISTRESS DURING CHILD INPATIENT CARE

Abstract

Hospitalization of child is one of the most stressful events of life for parents and children. This fear and stress may affect the process of treatment. Since there is no information available about the source of distress and needs of Iranian parents during the inpatient care of their children, we designed a research in order to discover the main source of worries and fears among parents. In this cross-sectional study 120 parents of 88 children were interviewed by structured questionnaire during the course of events when their child needed inpatient care. Twenty close ended questions were asked in order to assess the major source of worries and distress. Factor analyses were used as a statistical test for data analysis. The rotated factors pattern isolated 7 factors that accounted for 61.60% of variances and their factor loading was above 0.5: 1) environment adjustment, 2) lack of prehospitalization program, 3) lack of communication skills of caregiver, 4) parental skills, 5) hospitalization expenses, 6) lose of independence and 7) lack of information. Other items of questionnaire were eliminated because their loading factors were less than 0.5. This finding suggests parents’ education before and during the child inpatient care as a major need of parents. By parents education there is a chance of reducing their worries and fear and improve their parental skills. Offering prehospitalization programs also provide a good opportunity for parents to ask questions from staff members and may help them to adjust themselves with new environment.