The child is hospitalized in mothers determination of guilt and causes

Long-term illnesses and hospitalization are events that create negative emotional effects such as fear and anxiety on both children and their families. During the child's illness and hospitalization, the mother often blames herself. It is not possible to help the child and his family without investigating the causes of the negative emotions and thoughts experienced by the mothers. The aim of this study is to develop a measurement tool for measuring the feeling of guilt in mothers whose children are hospitalized and to identify the factors associated with this emotion. This study consists of two stages. First, because it is a scale developments study methodological. Secondly, it is cross-sectional to identify the factors associated with feelings of guilt in mothers. The research was carried out with the mother of 253 sick children who were hospitalized in the Pediatric Surgery Clinic of Afyonkarahisar Health Sciences University Health Practice and Research Center. The data were collected by questionnaire method and evaluated in SPSS 22.0 and AMOS 21 package program. The questionnaire was prepared with the Introductory Form and the Scale of Guilt in Mothers whose Child is Hospitalized (SGM). The draft scale consists of 30 questions that are used to learn the thoughts about criminality prepared in the 5-Likert type. The draft scale was applied to 253 people and factor analysis was performed. The factor analysis showed that the scale has a structure consisting of 18 items and five sub-dimensions. Components made up 58,1% of the total variance. Cronbach's Alpha coefficient, which is a measure of the reliability of the scale, is 0,76, Spearman-Brown and Guttman Split-half coefficients were found 0,79. Confirmatory factor analysis results of the scale; χ2 / df = 1,744; GFI =, 913; RMSEA =, 054; CFI =, 909. All these results show that the reliability of the scale is a high measurement tool. When the factors related to feelings of guilt in mothers are analyzed, the feeling of guilt is higher in mothers who are primary school graduates and do not have spousal support in childcare (p<0,05). Maternal age, number of children, working status of mothers, income status, place of residence, gender of the child, whether there is a relative with a spouse, whether there is a disabled child, the number of days hospitalized, the age of the sick child, the order of the sick child in the family do not affect the sense of guilt experienced by the mother (p>0,05). Keywords: Maternity, guilt, hospitalization, scale development