Determination of the making level of the hospitalized children?s parents? needs

SUMMARYDetermination of the making level of the hospitalized children?sparents? needsChild provides continuity of a family and gives sense to the lives of parents. Onthe other hand, illness is one of the stress sources every growing child may have. Theillness of a child directly affects not only herself/himself but also his/her family. Thecare of an ill child consists of the facts that ?Parents should be with their child,parents should participate the care and parents should assist for the treatment plan?.Therefore, most of time, needs of hospitalized children?s parents are ignored.This study was made to determine important needs of parents of hospitalizedchildren and how these parents cover their needs.The study was made by applying NPQ test on 150 parents of hospitalizedchildren in Afyonkarahisar Kocatepe University Child Health and Disease Clinic.Surveys were taken into account using Mann Whitney U, Kruskall-Wallis, PearsonChi-Square, Fisher?s Exact and percentage tests.The parents participating the study consists of 128 (85.3%) mother, 15 (10%)father and 7 ( 4.7%) close relations as grandfather, grandmother, aunt etc.The most important needs of parents participating the study are to have anexact information about their children?s condition, to be sure that their child takes thebest nursery service even though they are not with their child, to be hopeful, to getadvices while their child prepare for discharge, to know to get the best treatmentservice, to be informed about all health results, to be informed about all test resultsand the existence of nurses understanding and knowing their emotions respectively.Twenty-eight (19.4%) of parents express that informing their relations aboutthe condition of their child is unnecessary.In this study, parents observe that their physical needs are completely covered,but hospital?s condition is not enough for their child?s education.To conclude, the needs of parents who stay with their child in hospital shouldnot be ignored. It should not be forgotten that parents may be advantageous duringthe care and treatment of the child.Key Words: Hospital, child, parent, sick child and him/her family, parents?needs.