Children’s and parents’ views on hospital contact isolation: A qualitative study to highlight children’s perspectives

Abstract

Background: To date, there has been a paucity of studies conducted on the experiences of children under hospital contact isolation precautions. Furthermore, the studies that have examined children’s experiences at the hospital typically reflect the perspectives of their parents, and few have directly involved interviews with children themselves, and even fewer with children in isolation. Methods: To address this gap, we conducted semi-structured, open-ended interviews with hospitalized children to assess their experiences of being placed in isolation. Where possible, the children’s parents also completed written surveys to assess parental perspectives on their child’s experiences. Results: Two important findings of the study were the children’s resilience during a difficult time and children’s varying awareness of the pathophysiology of infections as it relates to isolation precautions. Examination of the parent–child dyads elucidated some discordance between parents’ and children’s perspectives on how children experienced their isolation, on what the children’s preferred activities were while in isolation, and how much children understood about the reasons they were in isolation. Conclusion: This study supports earlier studies that suggest that the benefits of isolation procedures may be outweighed by how negatively isolation is experienced by patients, particularly when the patients are children. It also highlights the need for child-friendly isolation signs. Because parental and child perceptions differed in cases where data from both were available, this study suggests larger studies on children’s perspectives and/or on parent–child dyads are needed.