A Qualitative Study Exploring The Needs Of Turkish Mothers In The Pediatric Intensive Care Unit

INTRODUCTION: Mothers have different needs, depending on their cultural and religious backgrounds, and these needs to be known and acknowledged by the PICU professional staff. To date, limited studies have been conducted in Turkey, a majority Muslim country, which analyzes the needs of mothers whose children are in PICU. The purpose of this study was to explore parents’ needs in a children hospital’s pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) in Turkey.
METHODS: A descriptive exploratory qualitative study. Individual, semi-structured interviews of a purposive sample of 9 mothers were carried out between December 2013 and May 2014. The mothers were enrolled to participate in the interviews with an average age of 27.4 years in PICU of a major children's hospital in Turkey.
RESULTS: In the content analysis, the main themes "to be sure of receiving the best care, having the needs fulfilled, being able to cope with the emotional feelings" were created.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: This study presents the disruptions during the PICU process, the fact that it is a difficult process for the mothers and they need too many things during this process and these needs have to be fulfilled.