Fears, Needs and Nursing Support of Mothers during Their Child's Hospitalization

Child illness and hospitalization is considered as one of the main sources of stress and anxiety for family. Parents should have the peace of spirit to provide adequate care and protection of children. This study investigates the fears and needs of mothers during their child hospitalization and their received nursing support. It was a descriptive, cross-sectional study. One hundred of mothers of children who were hospitalized at least for 24 hours in a pediatric ward in Mahabad city were recruited by random sampling. The mothers’ fears were assessed by a researcher- made questionnaire. parental needs were assessed by “parents’ needs of hospitalized children” questionnaire. Data related to nursing support of mothers were collected by the Nurse Parent Support Tool (NPST). SPSS-PC (v.11.5) was used for data analysis. Environmental factors and lack of pre-hospitalization programs were ranked as the most and least stress provoking factors by the mothers respectively. The needs related to sick child was ranked as the most important need from mothers’ point of view and the trust needs were ranked as highly met. The needs for other family members ranked as the least important need and also were met at the lowest level. Mothers received the most caring support (2.37 ± 0.39) and the least informational support (1.44 ± 0.69) from nurses. The mean score of total nurse support was 1.73 ± 0.82. Identification of stress factors in order to reduce the concerns of parents, meeting mother's needs along with the needs of children and providing the necessary facilities to provide parent's comfort should be considered by hospital planners and their managers.