Date on Paper
8-2019
Document Type
Doctoral Paper
Degree Name
D.N.P.
Department
Nursing
Committee Chair
Mary DeLetter
Committee Member
Sara Robertson
Author's Keywords
pediatric burns; caregiver coping; discharge toolkit; written discharge education; discharge education; hospital to home; discharge readiness; role theory
Abstract
In 2015, 4,506 children from 0-19 years of age were hospitalized with burn injuries in the United States (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2017). From 2013-2014, 325 out of 11,940 pediatric burn patients discharged from US facilities had unscheduled readmissions within 30 days (Wheeler et al., 2018). Adequate discharge education and quality of transitions from hospital to home will help prevent negative health outcomes and readmissions (Braet, Weltens, Bruyneel, & Sermeus, 2016). In this quality improvement project, caregivers of pediatric burn patients were assessed on their day of discharge with the Readiness for Hospital Discharge Scale (RHDS)- Parent Form (Weiss & Piacentine, 2006), received individualized discharge education, a burn-specific discharge education toolkit, and two follow-up phone calls. A Post-Discharge Coping Difficulty Scale (PDCDS) (Fitzgerald Miller, Piacentine and Weiss, 2008) was administered during the caregivers’ second follow-up phone call. Role theory guided this project as education was provided to help caregivers with their new role of caring for their child’s burn at home. Five parent/child dyads were included. The caregivers (mothers and fathers) scored a mean of 248.4 ± 32.16 out of 290 on the RHDS-Parent Form, with 290 representing complete readiness for discharge. Two weeks after discharge, parents scored a mean of 30.2 ± 20.1 on the PDCDS, with 100 indicating the greatest coping difficulty. During the three-month data collection from April-June 2019, there were 16 admitted pediatric burn patients with two readmissions during the month of May. No patients who received toolkits were readmitted, compared to 2/11 who did not receive toolkits. The distribution of toolkits was feasible and provided parents with necessary tools to care for burns at home.
Recommended Citation
Hack, Lindsay, "Improving caregiver coping and reducing recidivism with a pediatric burn discharge education toolkit." (2019). Doctor of Nursing Practice Papers. Paper 10.
Retrieved from https://ir.library.louisville.edu/dnp/10
