Highlights
- •Parents undertook several roles to ensure readiness and gave support to their children.
- •Parents faced challenges in communicating with children, experiencing negative emotions and dilemmas in decision-making.
- •Factors like prior experiences, children’s positive mentality, and access to information helped facilitate preparation.
- •Parents expressed surgery-related concerns such as anesthesia, the outcome of the surgery, and postoperative care.
- •Parents needed easier to understand information and suggested improvements in current practices and management.
Abstract
Purpose
To explore the perceptions of parents regarding the preparation of their children
for surgery.
Design and methods
A qualitative descriptive study was conducted. Sixteen parents of children who were
undergoing various types of elective surgery in a public tertiary hospital in Singapore
were recruited. Data were collected through face-to-face interviews and analyzed using
thematic analysis.
Results
Five themes were derived: (1) assumed roles of the parents; (2) communication, decision-making,
and emotional challenges; (3) factors facilitating the preparation of children for
surgery; (4) surgery-related and financial concerns; and (5) the desire for more information
and better management. While preparing their children for surgery, parents undertook
several roles to ensure readiness and to provide support. Parents faced challenges
while communicating with their children regarding their surgeries, experiencing negative
emotions and dilemmas in making decisions for surgery. Factors such as previous experiences,
children's positive mentality, and access to information helped to facilitate their
preparation. Parents expressed surgery-related concerns such as anesthesia and a successful
outcome of the surgery, the timing of the surgery, and postoperative care. Parents
expressed a desire for easier to understand information through the use of visual
materials, and improvements in current practices and management.
Conclusion
This study provides a greater understanding of parents' perceptions of their roles,
challenges, influencing factors, concerns, and needs when preparing their children
for surgery.
Practice implications
The study findings provide insightful aspects for improving current healthcare practices
and informing future research studies in exploring better surgery preparation programs
for both parents and children.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: May 27, 2020
Accepted:
May 8,
2020
Received in revised form:
May 8,
2020
Received:
February 25,
2020
Identification
Copyright
© 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
