Hospitalized children: how does their stay in the hospital affect them?

The hospitalization of a child It is always a difficult situation mainly for him, but also for his parents, siblings and other relatives. To find out how the stay in a hospital affects children, the Study on pain in hospitalized children, of the Grünenthal Foundation, has deepened the state of mind of hospitalized children.

But also in the fact of hospitalization, in the vision that children have of it, and especially in the emotional balance of children hospitalized during the course of their hospitalization, and their perception of pain and resources to alleviate it.

And it is to know in depth how a stay in a hospital can affect a child is the key to finding the channels of action to be able to help them. The objective is to minimize hospitalized children the possible traumas that can cause them both their illness and the treatment in a hospital center.


In this way, the study also highlights the importance of information for hospitalized children: knowing previously what is going to happen to them with their illness cushions the pain of 62% of the children, since it gives them some peace of mind. However, only half of children have been informed about the possibility of pain during their stay in the hospital, according to the report.

The importance of the mother in the hospital

Among the sanitary practices to which hospitalized children are subjected during their income, injections (punctures, punctures, etc.) they are the ones that awaken more fear among the little ones, and the instinctive reactions they cause are "hand sweat", "gut pain" and different nervous states such as worry, sadness and anger.


The role of the mother is essential to alleviate the stay of the children in the hospital, since, among all the relatives, it remains the main companion, in 69% of the cases, of the sick child, above the father (20 %) and grandparents (5%).

For deal with the pain, The resources used by hospitalized children are fundamentally: distraction (including sleep), request for help and relaxation. When they feel pain, 39% of children think that it is due to some symptom of their illness, while the 35% interpret it as a sign of healing, however only 15% associates both concepts.

How does the stay in the hospital affect the children?

Hospitalization always affects children emotionally, so that one in three children hospitalized is considered "somewhat worried", one in four with "something of fear" or sad; one in eight feels "somewhat angry".


But overall, the little ones feel emotionally well during their stay in the hospital, they say they are comfortable with the hospital staff because they are close and affectionate, they usually live their stay in the hospital as a passenger and value their playful and social part (volunteering, hospital classroom, activities, interacting with other children ...).

So, for hospitalized children, not everything is bad in the hospital: 94% affirm that what More likes the hospital is the treatment received (especially to children previously admitted), television (first-entry), school and games; The least liked are the punctures and food (especially those subject to periodic treatment).

Isabel Martínez

Video: Helping a child cope with a long hospitalization


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