Nurses' perceptions of parent empowerment in chronic illness.

BACKGROUND

Parent empowerment is upheld as a creative strategy to provide a family-centred care in chronic childhood illness. However identifying and measuring parent empowerment practices are ambiguous probably due to the subjective nature of the concept.

AIM

To explore nurses' perception of parent empowerment in chronic illness. Design Qualitative descriptive design.

METHOD

Three focus group interviews were conducted among a purposeful sample of child health nurses (N =14) and the data was analysed using qualitative content analysis strategy.

RESULTS

The participants identified that empowered parents are able to take care of their child in a safe and structured way at home. An atmosphere of trust, open communication, shared decision making, support and parental readiness to accept their child's care led to parent empowerment. Nurse's role was identified as an advocate for the child and the family and, as a frontline worker who fill the gap between parent and the multidisciplinary team.

CONCLUSION AND RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE

Educating parents about their child's condition, teaching them the needed new skills, and offering and providing them with support services are identified as the parent empowerment strategies. It is recommended that further training and clear clinical guidelines are needed to accomplish parent empowerment.