The effect of family centered care on meeting parental information needs of ‎hospitalized children

Introduction: Information about the nature of disease decreases the anxiety and unusual &lrm;behaviors of parents specially mothers, and reduces their problems in recurrence of disease, &lrm;which occurs in at least &lrm;&rlm;30%&rlm;&lrm; of cases. Parents want correct information about the status of &lrm;their hospitalized child and also want to be involved in their child&rsquo;s care and expect health &lrm;care providers to let them know about the expected changes that may occur in children&rsquo;s &lrm;physical condition. &nbsp;&lrm; Objective: The present study aims to determine the effect of family centered care on meeting &lrm;parental information needs of hospitalized children. &lrm; Methods: In this quasi experimental study, &lrm;&rlm;76&rlm;&lrm; mothers of hospitalized children admitted to &lrm;emergency ward of &lrm;&rlm;17&rlm;Shahrivar educational hospitals in Rasht were chosen by sequential &lrm;sampling and divided into two groups of experimental and control group. Informed consent &lrm;forms were given to selected mothers and after their agreement, family centered care was &lrm;performed for experimental group based on developed protocol with participation of mothers. &lrm;The control group received routine cares. &lrm; Results: Research findings showed that the level of meeting parental needs for information &lrm;was &lrm;&rlm;%21.1&rlm;&lrm; in control group and % &lrm;&rlm;81.6&rlm;&lrm; in experimental group. The t-test (p< &lrm;&rlm;0&rlm;&lrm;.&lrm;&rlm;0001&rlm;&lrm; t=&lrm;&rlm;6.922&rlm;&lrm; &lrm;df=&lrm;&rlm;74&rlm;&lrm;) showed significant difference between the two groups. &lrm; &nbsp;Conclusion: According to the study results family centered care was effective on the level of &lrm;meeting parents need for information and also lead to its increase.&lrm;