Mothers’ Experience of Children Peripheral Intravenous Catheterization: a qualitative content analysis

Background: Peripheral intravenous catheterization is one of the most painful procedures in children settings. Based on evidence, most of children do not benefit from pharmacological and non- pharmacological methods of pain management for this procedure and family members consider this experience as one of the most distressing ones in the hospital. This study aimed to explore the experience of mothers who had experienced difficult vascular catheterization of their children. Methods: This qualitative study using content analysis was carried out in different wards of a pediatrics referral center in Tehran, Iran (Markaz-e-Tebbi-Koodakan) in 2017. Purposeful sampling method was used to select 18 mothers who had suffered from their children's vascular catheterization. Deep semi structured interviews were used as the method of data gathering and qualitative content analysis was used for data analysis. Results: The main category was "unperceived frustration" which includes three subcategories, "role of nurse", "inability to support" and "coping ability". Conclusions: The present study increases our understanding of mothers' experiences of peripheral venous catheterization of their children. Despite being a routine experience for nurses, this experience appears to be very hard for mothers.