Importance of parental support in providing home support for children

<p>  Objective: The Nagasaki Children’s Medical and Welfare Center (hereafter referred to as the center) has been implementing an initiative in which 1-2-week joint parent-child hospitalization (hereafter referred to as parent-child hospitalization), in line with the family’s wishes, are repeated at intervals of approximately 1-3 months, with the aim of promoting at-home support to the children in a phased manner. We introduced specific initiatives for parent-child hospitalization and investigated the impact of parent-child hospitalization on the parents’ awareness. Methods: We measured two indices―the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM) and parental care confidence―in a total of 59 parents of pediatric patients who were admitted under the parent-child hospitalization initiative between March 2020 and September 2020. Measurements were performed at admission and discharge. Results: In a single round of parent-child hospitalization, an increase in the average level of performance and satisfaction of tasks set at the time of admission and an increase in the average level of parental care confidence (from an average of 3.75 at admission to an average of 4.03 at discharge) were observed. However, even after repeated parent-child hospitalizations, the average level of childcare confidence in terms of “acceptance of the child,” “response to the child,” and “understanding of behavior” did not increase in the long term. Conclusions: Although parent-child hospitalizations, even for short durations of 1-2 weeks, increased the parents’ COPM performance and satisfaction and childcare confidence, our study suggests that the effects are less likely to persist in the long term. Even after the onset/diagnosis, the parents were in an unstable condition, including experiencing feelings of worry and difficulty, highlighting the importance of being conscious about the issues experienced by parents who are providing support at home to their children and addressing them.</p>