• EvansRuth E CRECCentre for Outcomes and Experience Research in Children's Health, Illness and Disability (ORCHID), Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom., Vicky Barber, Padmanabhan Ramnarayan, Patrick Davies, Jo Wray, and DEPICT Study Group.
• Centre for Outcomes and Experience Research in Children's Health, Illness and Disability (ORCHID), Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom.
• Pediatr Crit Care Me. 2023 Oct 1; 24 (10): e476e486e476-e486.

ObjectivesEach year in the United Kingdom there are around 5,000 inter-hospital transfers of critically ill children into PICUs. There are few published descriptions of what this experience is like for parents. The objective was to describe parents' experiences of the inter-hospital transfer of their critically ill child to a PICU.DesignQualitative in-depth interviews.SettingTwenty-four PICUs in England and Wales.ParticipantsParent interview participants ( n = 30) were purposively sampled from a larger pool of parent questionnaire respondents to create a sample diverse in child's age, presenting medical illness, retrieval team and whether a parent traveled in the ambulance.Measurement And Main ResultsOpen-ended semi-structured interviews using topic guides to encourage parents to describe their experiences of transfer. Interviews were audio recorded, transcribed verbatim and thematically analyzed using Framework Analysis. Parents' perceptions of transport staff as confident and competent through observation of clinical care, and positive communication experiences during the transfer process, were related to feelings of trust and being supported, as well as relief from distress. Parents varied in their needs for conversation and support. Parents who did not travel in the ambulance had fewer opportunities to interact with the transport team and experienced different challenges in the period prior to their child's admission to the PICU.ConclusionsRetrieval teams can influence how parents experience their child's emergency transfer to the PICU, offering parents proximity to knowledgeable staff. Satisfaction may be related to matching parents' needs. Understanding parents' needs and optimizing opportunities for effective communication between parents and staff are beneficial to parents.Copyright © 2023 by the Society of Critical Care Medicine and the World Federation of Pediatric Intensive and Critical Care Societies.

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