Highlights
- •A burn injury can cause significant distress to a child and their family.
- •Starlight's Captains on Call program aims to distract kids during burn wound care.
- •Positive distraction may improve quality of care and patient outcomes.
- •Our program provided families with positive distraction from pain and boredom.
- •Nurses and caregivers appreciated the additional support during procedures.
Abstract
Introduction
Burn wound care procedures can cause severe pain to the child, and distress for both
the child and caregivers. We evaluated a new Starlight Children's Foundation program,
‘Captains on Call’, which aims to provide positive distraction during burn wound care
procedures to reduce the child's anxiety and pain. This paper presents a preliminary
evaluation, using a qualitative design, of Captains on Call at the Women's and Children's
Hospital, Australia.
Methods
We conducted interviews with caregivers (n = 18), patients (n = 6), nurses (n = 5)
and Captain Starlights (n = 3). Interviews focused on program impact and recommendations
for how to improve the program.
Results
We identified seven themes: (1) positive distraction from pain and boredom, (2) benefit
of additional support, (3) creating positive memories of the hospital, (4) catering
for unique needs of each patient and family, (5) general appreciation, (6) importance
of regular visits, and (7) a desire to expand the program. All caregivers, nurses
and patients reported that they were likely to recommend the program to others.
Conclusion
This study provides early evidence to support the benefit of the Captains on Call
program to families and health professionals, as well as the feasibility in providing
this integrated care.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: June 19, 2020
Accepted:
May 8,
2020
Received in revised form:
May 6,
2020
Received:
February 4,
2020
Identification
Copyright
© 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
