Introduction: The risk of complications is higher in intensive care units than in other units. As children with severe conditions are hospitalized, many drugs are used concomitantly, and invasive interventions are more frequent. Therefore, pediatric intensive care units are medical settings that cause traumatic stress in both children and their parents.
Knowing the extent to which anxiety levels are affected in a parent whose child is hospitalized in the intensive care unit is important. This study investigated the anxiety levels of mothers with a child in the intensive care unit and compared the levels of anxiety of mothers whose children were on mechanical ventilation with those of mothers with children who were not.
Materials and Methods: Hamilton Anxiety Scale forms were completed during face-to-face interviews with the mothers of patients after their childrens admission to the intensive care unit. The morher details were recorded in case report forms.
Results: In total, 128 patients were enrolled; 64 each on mechanical ventilation (patient group) and not on mechanical ventilation (control group) and their mothers. There was no significant difference in the mean ages of the patient and the control groups (73.9±38.4 months vs. 75.7±48.6 months; p=0.815). The mean Hamilton scale scores of the patient group and the control group were found to be 23.7±2.2 and 7.9±1.8, respectively (p=0.001). The age of the mothers was not correlated with the Hamilton Scale score in either the patient or control groups. No difference was found between the Hamilton Scale scores in terms of educational level in the patient and control groups (p>0.05).
Conclusion: The anxiety levels of the mothers whose children were admitted to the intensive care unit were high and these levels further increased with the possibility of their children being connected to mechanical ventilators.
Key words: Keywords: Child, mother, Anxiety Scale, intensive care unit
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