Follow-up Plan as a Necessity for Nursing Care: A Decrease of Stress in Mothers with their Children in Pediatric Surgical Units

Abstract

Introduction: Children are vulnerable to damage. Health problems in children, especially ifnecessitate hospitalization, can cause stress in their parents that may persist even long afterdischarge. This study aimed to investigate the effect of implementing follow-up care plans onstress in mothers of children discharged from pediatric surgical units. Methods: A quasi-experimental study was conducted on 64 mothers whose children were hospitalized in the surgical wards of two educational hospitals affiliated to Isfahan Universityof Medical Sciences, Iran. The participants were randomly assigned into two groups of controland experimental. The data collection tools included a demographic data questionnaire andstress response inventory (SRI). The interventions were performed using a four-stage follow-upcare plan. The data were analyzed using SPSS software version 13 and descriptive statistics, independent t-test, repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA), and least significant difference (LSD) test. Results: The mean (SD) stress scores of the experimental group were 64.1 (28.8), 20.4 (12.4),and 11.6 (7.5) before, one week, and one month after the intervention, respectively. In the control group, these scores were 61.2 (29.2), 59.9 (25.5), and 46.7 (19.1), respectively. The results showed the mean score was significantly lower than that of the control group at oneweek and one month after the intervention in the experimental group. Conclusion: Our results demonstrated that a follow-up care plan can decrease the stress levelsof mothers as a continuity of patient care even after discharge.