Families' needs when a child is long-term ill: a literature review with reference to nursing research.

This article reports a literature review which draws together findings targeting families' needs when a child is long-term ill. The databases PubMed and CINHAL were searched from 1999 to 2003 during February 2004. The search terms were child health care, family caregivers, and needs and combinations of these.

Needs during hospitalization: definitions and descriptions made by patients.

Patients are supposed to be given care according to their needs. This concept is, however, difficult to define and patients and caregivers may have different opinions about a patient's needs. Twenty patients were interviewed and asked to give a definition of need, describe their needs while hospitalized and depict what they do to make sure their needs are fulfilled.

Decision making in paediatric care: an overview with reference to nursing care.

The purpose of this overview of published articles on decision making in paediatric care was to identify important aspects of its possible use in clinical practice and to obtain a base for future research. A literature review was undertaken utilizing snowball sampling to identify articles because of the diversity present within the area of decision making in paediatric care. The databases PubMed and CINAHL were used.

Decision-making during hospitalization: parents' and children's involvement.

Background: Ethical duties of health professionals include the obligation to enhance their patients' competence and ability to participate.

Aims And Objectives: To explore what kind of decisions and how these decisions were made during a child's hospitalization.

Design: During a 9-week period 24 children and their parents were followed during the course of events at the hospital.

Children's participation in the decision-making process during hospitalization: an observational study.

Twenty-four children (aged 5 months to 18 years) who were admitted to a university hospital were observed for a total of 135 hours with the aim of describing their degree of participation in decisions concerning their own care. Grading of their participation was made by using a 5-point scale. An assessment was also made of what was considered as optimal participation in each situation.