Open Access Open Access  Restricted Access Subscription Access

Working with families in an emergency department: perceptions of working with children and their parents

Linda Shields, Wendy Smyth, Abdullah Mamun, Lisa Lucas

Abstract


Rationale and aim: Family-centred care is widely used as a model of care in children’s health services. This paper is part of a series of studies using a validated questionnaire to test health professionals’ perceptions of working with children and with their parents.

Method: The questionnaire has two questions and employs a scoring system of semantic differentials. Other questions examined demographic characteristics. The scores were compared and tested against demographic characteristics. Participants (n=126) were nurses, doctors and allied health professionals who worked with children in the emergency department of a tertiary referral regional hospital in northern Australia. We used Wilcoxon signed rank test and median to compare the scores and ANOVA to test mean differences of demographics.

Results: Scores for working with children (3.81) were more positive than working with parents (3.29), (p<0.001). Scores were influenced by education level (p=0.05), gender (p=0.05), marital status (p=0.04), having one’s own children (p=0.02) and by length of time working with children (p=0.05).

Conclusions: Health professionals working with children in a large, regional hospital’s emergency department held more postitive perceptions about working with children than working with their parents. This is consistent with other studies using the same tool in a variety of settings and countries and indicates that family-centred care is not being fully implemented.

Keywords


Emergency care, family-centered care (FCC), implementation, paediatric health services, multidisciplinary clinical team, person-centered healthcare, working with families

Full Text:

PDF

References


Shields, L. (2010). Questioning family‐centred care. Journal of Clinical Nursing 19 (17‐18) 2629-2638.

Shields, L., Zhou, H., Pratt, J., Taylor, M., Hunter, J. & Pascoe, E. (2012). Family-centred care for hospitalised children aged 0-12 years. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 10: CD004811.

Söderbäck, M. & Christensson, K. (2008). Family involvement in the care of a hospitalised child: A questionnaire survey of Mozambican family caregivers. International Journal of Nursing Studies 45 (12) 1778-1788.

Foster, M., Whitehead, L. & Maybee, P. (2016). The parents’, hospitalized child’s, and health care providers’ perceptions and experiences of family-centered care within a pediatric critical care setting: A synthesis of quantitative research. Journal of Family Nursing 22 (1) 6-73.

Jolley, J. & Shields, L. (2009). The Evolution of Family-Centered Care. Journal of Pediatric Nursing 24 (2) 164-170.

King, G.A., Rosenbaum, P.L. & King, S.M. (1997). Evaluating family-centred service using a measure of parents’ perceptions. Child: Care, Health and Development 23 (1) 47-62.

Zhou, H., Shields, L., Watts, R., Taylor, M., Munns, A. & Ngune, I. (2012). Family-centred care for hospitalized children aged 0-12 years: A systematic review of qualitative studies. JBI Database of Systematic Reviews and Implementation Reports 10 (57) 3917-3935.

Watts, R., Zhou, H., Shields, L., Taylor, M., Munns, A. & Ngune, I. (2014). Family-centered care for hospitalized children aged 0-12 years: A systematic review of qualitative studies. JBI Database of Systematic Reviews and Implementation Reports 12 (7) 204-283.

Coyne, I., O’Neill, C., Murphy, M., Costello, T. & O’Shea, R. (2011). What does family-centred care mean to nurses and how do they think it could be enhanced in practice. Journal of Advanced Nursing 67 (12) 2561-2573.

Aggarwal, S., Chadha, P., Kalia, S., Richardson, S., Winterbottom, L. & Shields, L. (2009). Perceptions of family-centred care: A UK pilot study of the Shields and Tanner questionnaires. Neonatal, Paediatric and Child Health Nursing 12 (2) 25-29.

Smyth, W., Kruze, R., Al Mamun, A., White, A. & Shields, L. (2016). Working with families in community services: multidisciplinary perceptions of working with children and their parents. Neonatal, Paediatric & Child Health Nursing 19 (1) 18.

Shields, L., Çavuşoğlu, H., Pars, H. & Mamun, A.A. (2015). Measuring family-centred care: working with children and their parents in a Turkish hospital. European Journal for Person Centered Healthcare 3 (3) 27-33.

Shields, L., Mamun, A.A., Flood, K. & Combs, S. (2014). Measuring family-centred care: working with children and their parents in two second level hospitals in Australia. European Journal for Person Centered Healthcare 2 (2) 206-211.

Shields, L., Mamun, A.A., Pereira, S., O'Nions, P. & Chaney, G. (2011). Measuring family centred care: working with children and their parents in a tertiary hospital. International Journal of Person Centered Medicine 1 (1) 155-160.

Feeg, V.D., Paraszczuk, A.M., Çavuşoğlu, H., Shields, L., Pars, H. & Al Mamun, A. (2016). How is Family Centered Care Perceived by Healthcare Providers from Different Countries? An International Comparison Study. Journal of Pediatric Nursing 31 (3) 267-276.

World Health Organization. (2017). Health workforce: data and statistics Geneva: World Health Organization. [cited 2017 19/06/2017]. Available from: http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/Health-systems/health-workforce/data-and-statistics.

Shields, L. (2015). What is “Family-Centred Care”? European Journal for Person Centered Healthcare 3 (2) 139-144.

Shields, L., Zhou, H., Taylor, M., Hunter, J., Munns, A. & Watts, R. (2012). Family-centred care for hospitalised children aged 0-12 Years: A systematic review of quasi-experimental studies. JBI Database of Systematic Reviews and Implementation Reports 10 (39) 2559-2592.

Corlett, J. & Twycross, A. (2006). Negotiation of parental roles within family-centred care: a review of the research. Journal of Clinical Nursing 15 (10) 1308-1316.

Australian Commission on Quality and Safety in Health Care. (2012). National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards.[cited 2017 4/8/17]. Available from: https://www.safetyandquality.gov.au/publications/national-safety-and-quality-health-service-standards/.

Stuart, M. & Melling, S. (2014). Understanding Nurses' and Parents' Perceptions of Family-Centred Care. Nursing Children and Young People 26 (7) 21.

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Workforce - Health Workforce 2016 [cited 2017 4/8/17]. Available from: http://www.aihw.gov.au/workforce/.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5750/ejpch.v6i2.1429

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.