Preparation of school-age children and their parents for intensive care following cardiac surgery.

The preparation of school-age children and their parents for intensive care following cardiac surgery for congenital heart disease merits discussion. The prospect of cardiac surgery and the ensuing admission to an intensive care unit can pose many real and imagined threats and can be extremely stressful for both children and their parents. The focus in this paper is on methods of preparation, aspects of hospitalisation and intensive care that children and their parents find stressful and how preparation can help to alleviate this stress.