Parent-nurse collaboration: using the caregiver identity emergence phases to assist parents of hospitalized children with disabilities.

Twenty-three parents of hospitalized or recently hospitalized children aged 2 to 13 years and with cognitive impairments and a variety of disabling conditions were recruited to participate in a qualitative study exploring parental caregiving experiences. A substantive theory, caregiving identity emergence, was generated from the data. An inadvertent, developmental identity emergence process and trajectory were described by the parents. The theory generated in this study proposes that parental caregiving characteristics are acquired systematically as parents incorporate new knowledge and alter their behaviors to manage caregiving responsibilities. The focus of this article is on how the characteristics of the parent caregiver described in the findings of the study provide basic background information about parental caregiving from which pediatric nurses can formulate facilitative interventions to create caregiving partnerships.