Determination of Psychosocial Symptoms of Children aged 6-12 years Hospitalized after Surgery

Abstract

Objective: This research was conducted to examine the psychosocial symptoms of children aged 6-12 years who were hospitalized after surgery.
 Materials and Methods: This descriptive and cross-sectional study was conducted in the pediatric surgery service of a university hospital between September 2022 and February 2023. The sample of the study consisted of 124 children aged 6-12 years who were hospitalized for at least three days after surgery. Data; Descriptive statistics obtained with the “Child and Parent Descriptive Form” and “Psychosocial Symptoms Identification in the Hospitalized Children” were evaluated with the “Mann Whitney U” and “Kruskal Wallis H” tests.
 Results: In the research was found, the mean age of the children was 8.28 ± 2.15, 63.7% of them were “male”, 82.3% of them were hospitalized for more than “5 days or more”, and 75% of them were hospitalized for the “first time” experience. It was determined that 79% of the children had the experience of having an operation for the "first time", 96.8% of them were psychologically affected during the postoperative hospital stay, and 61% of them had "bad" compliance with the postoperative treatment process.
 Conclusion: Psychosocial symptoms are observed in children hospitalized after surgery, and the child's gender, age, length of hospital stay, previous hospitalization and surgery experience are important determinants. The pediatric nurse should be aware of the experiences and emotions of the children in this process, should be able to define their psychosocial symptoms and plan interventions.