Children's health care : journal of the Association for the Care of Children's Health
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The purpose of this study was to identify staff behaviors and parental coping patterns helpful to parents during their child's hospitalization in a pediatric intensive care unit. Subjects were 21 mothers and 15 fathers of 27 hospitalized children. ⋯ The staff behavior seen as most important by the largest number of parents was "being permitted to stay with their child as much as possible." In evaluating the overall findings regarding personal coping strategies, it appears that parents most frequently used problem-focused coping strategies and that these strategies were seen as most helpful. Emotion-focused coping was used by a slightly lower percentage of parents than the other categories.
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The activist roles that parents play in the establishment and function of child life programs are presented. Five areas of parental activism are identified and discussed, including creation of a child life program, contributions to child life, protest activities, education of child life workers, and emotional support and role validation of workers. The barriers to effective activism are explored as they exist in the parent, the child life worker, and the institution. The summary includes suggestions to facilitate parental activism.