Parent experiences of their child’s dressing changes for burn injury
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Parent/ carer experiences of their child’s dressing changes taking place on the burns unit
IRAS ID
156764
Contact name
Jessica Morley
Contact email
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
N/A, N/A
Research summary
This study will be researching parent/ carer experiences of their child’s dressing changes taking place on the Burns Unit. Experiencing a burn injury is a traumatic event for children and is distressing, not only at the point of injury, but also throughout the course of burn care and treatment. During treatment, patients will often have to visit hospital to undergo a course of dressing changes to help the burn heal and reduce scaring. Such dressing changes are often extremely painful and particularly distressing for children. There is inconclusive evidence in relation to psychosocial pain and distress management in children during dressing changes and whether parental involvement during dressing changes is helpful. This gives rise to the need for further exploratory research in this area. Being that the majority of paediatric burns are experienced by children under the age of 5 years, further investigation in relation to this population is of additional importance. As the majority of parents are present during their child’s dressing changes it is important to explore their experiences of this. The current study will recruit parents of children under the age of 5 who have attended dressing changes for their burn injury on the Burns Unit at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital. Participants will be asked to complete a semi-structure interview lasting approximately one hour which will take place in a room at the burns unit or at home. The results of this research will be useful in increasing understanding of how parents specifically describe their experiences of this phase of their child’s burn recovery and could also potentially be helpful in understanding how, from a psychological point of view, parents could be best supported through this process. The study will be funded by Lancaster University.
REC name
East of England - Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/EE/1114
Date of REC Opinion
10 Sep 2014
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion