Children in intensive care: can nurse-parent partnership enable the child and family to cope more effectively?

The admission of a child to an intensive care unit (ICU) causes extreme distress and is likely to throw the family unit into turmoil (Hazinski 1992). The effects of hospitalisation on the child are well known (Rutter 1981), as are stressors which affect the parents' functional ability at a time of extreme stress (Rushton 1990). This paper examines the conflict caused for the whole family by a child's admission to ICU and how nurses can minimise these effects. In particular, it includes investigation of the use of a nurse-parent partnership which, it is argued, will enable the child and family to cope more effectively with the experience of intensive care admission.