Levels of nursing support and health care satisfaction among parents of hospitalized children

Nursing support provided to parents during their children's hospitalization is a vital component of nursing practice. It was determined that when the nurses supported the parents of hospitalized children, the parents managed the hospital stay process better and the health care satisfaction levels increased. The aim of the study was to measure the relationship between nursing support and parental health care satisfaction. This descriptive and cross-sectional study was conducted with parents (f=143) whose children were hospitalized in the general pediatric services of a training and research hospital between December 2019 and February 2020. Research data were collected with the "Descriptive Information Form", "Nurse Parent Support Tool (NPST)" and "PedsQL Health Care Satisfaction Scale (PedsQL-HCSS)". In this research, statistical analysis comprised of descriptive statistics, Cronbach's Alpha, independent groups t-test (student t-test); one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) Mann-Whitney U test, Kruskall-Wallis and Spearman Correlation analysis. The mean age of the parents included in the study was 32.30∓6.16. It was determined that the total mean scores of the parents' NPST and PedsQL-HCSS were 64.16±20.75 and 55.22±24.22, respectively. There were significant differences between the median scores of the parents relative to their age on the NPST quality care support subscale and between the median scores of the parents relative to their level of education on the PedsQL-HCSS technical skill subscale (p<0.05). There was also a significant difference between the medians of the total score of NPST and the median scores of subscale for the children of the parents in the study depending on whether they had an acute or chronic illness (p<0.05). There is a high correlation between total score averages of the parents' NPST and PedsQL-HCSS (r=0.755; p<0.001). The levels of satisfaction with nursing support and health care among parents whose children were hospitalized were moderate. It is necessary to provide in-service training on the subject in order for the nursing support and health care satisfaction of parents to reach the desired level.