Article Text
Abstract
Background Following paediatric cardiac surgery, quality of life may be significantly impacted by morbidities associated with cardiac surgery. Parental understanding of the potential for postoperative morbidity is important for informed decision making. As part of a broader research study, we aimed to elicit parental understanding and experience of the communication of morbidities following their child’s cardiac surgery, using traditional focus groups together with an online forum.
Methods The Children’s Heart Federation set up and moderated a closed, anonymous online discussion group via their Facebook page, focusing on complications, information needs and methods of providing families with information. Additionally, we ran three focus groups with parents/carers, moderated by an experienced independent professional. Focus groups were recorded and transcribed and a single transcript was generated from the online forum. All transcripts were thematically analysed.
Results All data were collected in 2014. The forum ran over 3 months in 2014 and involved 72 participants. Focus groups involved 13 participants. Three broad themes were identified: (1) clinicians’ use of language, (2) feeling unprepared for complications and (3) information needs of families.
Conclusions Clinicians’ language is often misunderstood, with wide variability in the way morbidities are described, and between differing teams looking after the same child. Information may not be easily absorbed or retained by families, who often felt unprepared for morbidities that arose after their child’s heart surgery. Here, we propose key principles of good communication tailored to the individual receiving it.
- cardiac surgery
- intensive care
- qualitative research
- outcomes research
- psychology
This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to copy, redistribute, remix, transform and build upon this work for any purpose, provided the original work is properly cited, a link to the licence is given, and indication of whether changes were made. See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
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Footnotes
Twitter @chrischirp
Funding This project was funded by the National Institute for Health Research Health Services and Delivery Research programme (Project No: 12/5005/06).
Competing interests None declared.
Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were involved in the design or conduct or reporting or dissemination plans of this research. Refer to the Methods section for further details.
Patient consent for publication Not required.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Data availability statement All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as supplementary information. Note: The original uncoded transcripts from the online forum and three focus groups are under the care of Dr Wray. Email: jo.wray@gosh.nhs.uk.