Level of Stress among Mothers of Children Admitted in Paediatric Intensive Care Unit of Indira Gandhi Medical College and Hospital, Shimla (Himachal Pradesh)

Abstract

The paediatric intensive care unit (PICU) is a multi-disciplinary unit that provides care for infants, children and adolescents who become critically ill or injured. Admission of a child to the Paediatric intensive care unit is a stressful situation for the mothers who are accompanying the min PICU. It is very dif cult to explain the devastating stress experienced by mothers. The aim of the study was to assess was the level of stress and its association with selected demographic variables. The study adopted a descriptive research design and was conducted in PICU of IGMC & Hospital, Shimla. A total of 32 (total enumeration) mothers were selected. A semi-structured interview schedule and perceived stress scales were used for data collection. Data analysis was done by using the descriptive, and inferential statistics. The study results revealed that 6 (18.8%) of mothers had high and 26 (81.3%) had severe level of stress. The type of family, family budget altered due to the illness of child that were found to have a strong association at 0.05 level of signi cance. To conclude mothers are highly stressed due to the child’s admission in PICU. So there is emphasis on the use of coping strategies, grievance and counselling cells in the hospital.