Children in an adult world

Abstract

Hospital conditions for children have changed dramatically over the last decades. Until recently, hospitalised children were left without their parents in an environment that was not adapted to children. In the period 1950-1980, hospitalised children did not have a voice. The aim of this Norwegian study was to use adult memories of childhood hospitalisation to investigate the influences of the hospital environment on the experiences of children. The study had a qualitative design and used a hermeneutic phenomenological approach. Twelve adults who were 5½ to 12 years old when they were first hospitalised with type 1 diabetes were interviewed. The participants described their hospital stays as representing a life in an adult world. They encountered an unfamiliar place where it was challenging to be abandoned in an adult hospital community with a serious and exhausting illness. The results underscore the need to incorporate children's perspectives to achieve a 'child friendly' environment in the hospital. Thirty years later there still may be a tension between the adults' responsibility to protect children and the children's own right to participation in decision-making. To understand current practices, it is important to know our historical past.