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BackgroundSystem-level interventions including rapid response teams and paediatric early warning scores have been designed to support escalation of care and prevent severe adverse events in hospital wards. Barriers and facilitators to escalation of care have been rarely explored in paediatric settings.AimThis study explores the experiences of parents and healthcare professionals of in-hospital paediatric clinical deterioration events to identify factors associated with escalation of care.MethodsAcross 2 hospital sites, 6 focus groups with 32 participants were conducted with parents (n=9) and healthcare professionals (n=23) who had cared for or witnessed a clinical deterioration event of a child. Transcripts of audio recording were analysed for emergent themes using a constant comparative approach.FindingsFour themes and 19 subthemes were identified: (1) impact of staff competencies and skills, including personal judgement of clinical efficacy (self-efficacy), differences in staff training and their impact on perceived nursing credibility; (2) impact of relationships in care focusing on communication and teamwork; (3) processes identifying and responding to clinical deterioration, such as patient assessment practices, tools to support the identification of patients at risk and the role of the rapid response team; and (4) influences of organisational factors on escalation of care, such as staffing, patient pathways and continuity of care.ConclusionsFindings emphasise the considerable influence of social processes such as teamwork, communication, models of staff organisation and staff education. Further studies are needed to better understand how modification of these factors can be used to improve patient safety.

BackgroundIn Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs), parent satisfaction and their experiences are fundamental to assess clinical practice and improve the quality of care delivered to infants and parents. Recently, a specific instrument, the EMpowerment of PArents in THe Intensive Care-Neonatology (EMPATHIC-N), has been developed in the Netherlands. This instrument investigated different domains of care in NICUs from a family-centered care perspective. In Italy, no rigorous instruments are available to evaluate parent satisfaction and experiences in NICU with family-centered care. The aim of this study was to translate and validate the EMPATHIC-N instrument into Italian language measuring parent satisfaction.MethodsA psychometric study was conducted in nine Italian NICUs. The hospitals were allocated across Italy: four in the North, four in Central region, one in the South. Parents whose infants were discharged from the Units were enrolled. Parents whose infants died were excluded.ResultsBack-forward translation was conducted. Twelve parents reviewed the instrument to assess the cultural adaptation; none of the items fell below the cut-off of 80% agreement. A total of 186 parents of infants who were discharged from nine NICUs were invited to participate and 162 parents responded and returned the questionnaire (87%). The mean scores of the individual items varied between 4.3 and 5.9. Confirmatory factor analysis was performed and all factor loadings were statistically significant with the exception of item ‘Our cultural background was taken into account’. The items related to overall satisfaction showed a higher trend with mean values of 5.8 and 5.9. The Cronbach’s alpha’s (at domain level 0.73-0.92) and corrected item-total scale correlations revealed high reliability estimates.ConclusionsThe Italian EMPATHIC-N showed to be a valid and reliable instrument measuring parent satisfaction in NICUs from a family-centered care perspective. Indeed, it had good psychometric properties, validity, and reliability. Furthermore, this instrument is fundamental for further research and internationally benchmarking.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s13052-017-0439-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.