Congenital heart disease is one of the most serious and most commonly occurring chronic illnesses in children. Management of CHD is primarily surgical. The mortality rates of children with CHD have gone down, and heart surgery has become a “routine” procedure as a result of the tremendous advances made in cardiovascular diagnostic and surgical techniques. For parents, surgery on an organ as essential to life as the heart is never routine. As additional stressor for parents of a CHD child is the subsequent admission of the child to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) after heart surgery. Therefore, this study was designed to explore and describe the relationship between family and child demographic characteristics, family stress, perceived social support, coping and adjustment in families who have a child in the PICU after heart surgery. This study is guided by McCubbin, Thompson & McCubbin Resiliency Model of Family Stress, Adjustment, and Adaptation. A convenience sample of 120 families with a child undergoing heart surgery will be asked to fill out the self-administered questionnaire packet 48 hours after the child’s admission to the PICU after heart surgery. The Family Inventory of Life Events (FILE), the Parental Stressor Scale: Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PSS: PICU), Coping Health Inventory for Parents (CHIP), the Inventory of Socially Supportive Behaviors (ISSB), and the Family Assessment Device (FAD) will be utilized to measure family stress, coping, perceived social support, and adjustment in families who have a child in the PICU after heart surgery. Data analysis will consist of descriptive statistics, correlation, and simple and multiple regression analysis. The results of this study will provide a basis for nurses to develop interventions that minimize stress and facilitate adjustment in families with a child undergoing heart surgery.
Session #1219 - Poster Session I
The 29th Annual MNRS Research Conference (April 1-4, 2005)