Qualitative and Systemic Assessment of a Family Health Nurse Intervention Through Play, Which Aims to Prepare an Inpatient Child and His or Her Parents for Heart Surgery

The hospitalization of a child for surgery is a major event that can disrupt a family's life. Indeed, whatever the degree of severity and type of pathology that leads to hospitalization, a stay in hospital is often synonymous with stress and fear, both for the child and for parents. A lack of knowledge of care procedures, the feeling of not being able to control the situation and a lack of explanations in terms adapted to their age are all factors that contribute to the vulnerability of children hospitalized for surgery.

Preoperative anxiety can be defined as an overflow of the child's ability to cope with stress, induced by the fear of surgery. Significant preoperative anxiety could increase the risk of post-operative complications and promote emotional and behavioural disorders such as: insecurity, guilt, anger, anger, regression, withdrawal or rebellion, it could also have the effect of limiting the child's ability to cope with surgery, encouraging negative behaviours related to health care, but also inhibiting post-operative recovery. These behavioural disorders induced by preoperative anxiety may persist once hospitalization is completed and the family returns home. In addition, if the operating experience is negative, the child may develop separation anxiety or even phobia following surgery and in extreme cases acute stress or even post-traumatic stress. The risk for the child to develop one of these disorders following surgery is increased by the frequency and duration of the anxiety episodes to which he or she will be subjected.

Parents of children hospitalized for surgery would also experience very high stress, related to their perception of their child's state of health, apprehension of invasive treatments, as well as fear of sequelae that could be caused by certain invasive treatments or because of their child's pathology. It is therefore important, during hospitalization and surgery, to take into consideration the anxiety of the child, but also of his or her parents, and to consider how best to manage this anxiety in order to prevent complications.