Nurses' beliefs and perceptions regarding family-centered care services in acute pediatric healthcare settings

Abstract

ObjectivesTo describe pediatrics nurses' beliefs about family-centered services (FCS) as a model of providing healthcare to children in acute care settings in Jordan. Design and methodsThis is a cross-sectional descriptive study. Nurses who provide direct acute care to children (n = 246) completed the ‘Measure of Beliefs about Participation in Family-Centered Service’ questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were used to describe nurses' beliefs about participation, practical feasibility, implementation self-efficacy, principles, and potential adverse outcomes of FCS. ResultsMany nurses feel confident (70%) about their ability to work with others in providing FCS and perceive having the ability to operate according to family-centered care (FCC) principles (68%). Many (75%) nurses believed parents should be encouraged to decide how much they want to be involved in the child's care. However, only 46% of the nurses valued attending to family priorities if the health decisions made by the family differed from the healthcare providers' priorities. Many nurses (70%) believed that healthcare professionals' competencies and capacities to work utilizing FCC are more important than their personal preferences and opinion. ConclusionsThe findings of this study clearly indicate that nurses positively viewed providing children's care within a FCS. This supports the efforts to reasonably integrate FCC as an operating model in the pediatric healthcare settings in Jordan. Practice implicationsFCS is a complex task requiring integrating multidisciplinary effort and healthcare providers' positive attitudes toward families as care partners. Steps should help maximize the organizational resources to facilitate family presence and create opportunities for professional-families partnerships for children's care.