Anxiety responses of parents during and after the hospitalization of their 5- to 11-year-old children.

The purpose of this study was to examine the anxiety responses of parents (N = 52) of 5- to 11-year-old children during and after the hospitalization of their child. The study assessed the level of parental anxiety and its change over time and it examined the relationship between parental anxiety and their children's anxiety, age, gender, length of hospitalization, and previous admission. The study also examined the feelings reported by the parents. Parents showed a decrease in anxiety from admission to discharge whereas anxiety remained fairly constant from discharge to posthospitalization. There was a positive relationship between parental anxiety and the length of the child's hospitalization. There were both positive and negative relationships between the various measures of parental and child anxiety. No relationship was found between parental anxiety and the children's age, gender, and previous admission. Findings of this study have implications for practice and further research.