Parenting a child in the hospital : factors influencing maternal role alteration stress

Abstract

The purpose of this descriptive correlational study was to investigate factors influencing parental role alteration stress of mothers with a child hospitalized on a general care pediatric unit. The subjects consisted of 30 mothers whose children were 7 to 59 months (4 years 11 months) and had no previous hospitalizations. The relationship of parent role alteration stress to perception of competency with normal child rearing tasks, the child's acuity of illness, and whether the child's admission was expected, not planned, or unexpected was investigated. The stress scores were low for the subjects' (mean 35.27) out of a possible range of 16-80. No significant relationship was obtained between parent role alteration stress and either competency or acuity. There were no significant differences among the stress scores when the children's admissions were expected, not planned or unexpected.