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RES222
Caring in Pediatric Emergency Nursing
By: G. Gillespie, J. Pettinichi, M. Mattei, & M. Hounchell; Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH
For further information, please contact: gillesgl@yahoo.com
Purpose: The aim of this study was to identify nurse caring behaviors that were most important to the parents of a pediatric emergency department population.
Background/Significance: The theory of human caring was developed with the assumption that caring is an essential component of a healing environment and represents the essence of nursing. There is a growing perception that nurses have lost their caring behaviors. This belief may be because, the behaviors most valued by patients and families are not those perceived as most important by the nurses providing care. It is important to determine what caring behaviors are most important to the parents of pediatric patients.
Methods: In this non-experimental descriptive study, 300 parents of children treated in a pediatric emergency department were recruited. The parents’ children were assigned an acuity level by the triage nurse as emergent, urgent, or non-urgent. Parents completed a web-based version of the Caring Behaviors Assessment where they selected the importance of 61 nurse caring behaviors. Parents were also given a description of the acuity levels and selected the acuity that they believed their child should have been triaged. Descriptive statistics were computed for instrument items and the chi-square statistic was used to determine the difference between triage-assigned and parent-assigned acuity level.
Results: Validity was determined using a construct validity index with doctoral and evidence-based practice experts. Internal consistency reliability was .971. Leading nurse caring behaviors were related to technical competence, providing interventions timely, communication, facilitating family presence, and including family in care delivery options without differences when comparing data based on triage-assigned acuity level and parent-perceived acuity level. Parents were most likely to perceive their child’s acuity level as urgent (70%). A significant difference was found between nurse-assigned and parent-perceived acuity level, X (4) = 36.353, p < 0.001.
Conclusions: Nurse caring behaviors are important regardless of patient acuity level. Parents’ perceptions of illness were different from that of the triage nurses. Nurses should openly discuss illness severity with patients and families as a starting point to demonstrate nurse caring.
Funding: This study was supported in part by Emergency Medicine, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH.
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