Ms Deborah Maze¹, Ms Sandra Spalding¹

¹The Children’s Hospital At Westmead, Sydney, Australia

Abstract:

Background

A current component of burns service provision and standard of care at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead is the provision of pre-operative information. This is offered to carers of inpatients with a burn injury who require debridement and skin grafting.

Clinical information about the child’s burn injury, skin grafting process and post-operative expectations are explained by the Clinical Nurse Consultant in the presence of the Burns Social Worker (SW). Carers are prepared for viewing their child’s skin grafts and donor sites and engage in discussions around discharge planning and long term scar management. The SW provides an opportunity for carers to debrief and discuss their emotional reactions and responses to the viewing of photographs and information provided. The SW discusses the importance of parental coping and adjustment and the long term impacts of burn injury as children transition through normal developmental stages.

Purpose

To evaluate the effectiveness of the pre-operative information sessions, establish baseline outcome measures and obtain carer feedback on satisfaction levels with this aspect of service provision. The results of this study will help to streamline processes for providing information sessions, inclusive of educational resources and identify opportunities for improvement.

Method

This is a prospective cohort study. Data will be collected over a 2 year period. Parents or carers complete a questionnaire within 7 days of attending a pre-operative information session.

Results

21 participants have been recruited thus far. Preliminary results and outcome measures will be presented.

Key Words

Burn, paediatric, pre-operative education, parent or carer satisfaction

Biography:

Both Deborah and Sandra have over 25 years experience providing care for paediatric patients and their families within the Burns Service at CHW.