Factors influencing fatigue among mothers with hospitalized children: A structural equation model

Abstract

Purpose: The aim of this study was to identify the physiological, psychological, and situational factors affecting fatigue among mothers of hospitalized children. Design and Methods:This study used a cross-sectional descriptive design with a self-report questionnaire. Participants were 211 mothers with children younger than 6 years old who were admitted to general hospitals. Based on the theory of unpleasant symptoms, the physiological, psychological, and situational factors were tested using structural equation modeling.Results: Mothers' fatigue was influenced by physiological ( = .24), situational, and psychological factors ( = .17), and situational ( = .37) factors such as the mother's sleeping hours, the child's adaptation to hospitalization, anxiety and having support with their housework. These three factors explained 31.34% of the variance in fatigue. In particular, it was found that the psychological factors exacerbate the negative influence of the situational factors on fatigue. Moreover, the situational factors were most strongly related to mothers' fatigue, and they had an indirect effect via the psychological factors as a mediator.Practice Implications: It is necessary to implement a nursing intervention that targets the controllable factors such as anxiety and children's adaptation to hospitalization that were identified in this study. Pediatric nursing care should not be limited to treating children's illnesses, but should be extended to providing family-centered care.

A systematic integrative review of parents' experience and perception of sleep when they stay overnight in the hospital together with their sick children

“…The included studies explored and documented parents' experiences of factors in the neonatal intensive care unit that made it easier, or more difficult, for them to stay with their extremely preterm infant (Blomqvist, Nyqvist, Rubertsson, & Funkquist, ; Edéll‐Gustafsson, Angelhoff, Johnsson, Karlsson, & Mörelius, ; Heinemann, Hellstrom‐Westas, & Hedberg Nyqvist, ). Also included in the aims of the studies was the documentation of physiological, psychological and situational factors affecting fatigue among mothers (Kim et al, ). Other aims were as follows: prevalence estimates of self‐report sleep quantity and quality among parents accommodated on the paediatric oncology ward (McLoone et al, ), and descriptions and measurement of sleep quantity and sleep patterns (Bevan et al, ; Nassery & Landgren, ), and additionally, factors affecting the sleep of parents with critically ill children (Stremler et al, ; Stremler, Haddad, Pullenayegum, & Parshuram, ) as well as strategies used to improve parents' sleep (Stremler, Dhukai, Wong, & Parshuram, ).…”

“…Three overall themes were identified in the studies: parents' sleep quality (Table ); factors effecting parents' sleep in the hospital (Table ); and consequences of sleep loss (Figure ). Several studies found combined psychological factors to be affecting sleep of parents staying overnight in the hospital (Kim et al, ; Stremler et al, ). Others identify isolated psychological factors where parents report stress (Edéll‐Gustafsson et al, ), anxiety (Edéll‐Gustafsson et al, ; McLoone et al, ), uncertainty, worries (Meltzer, Biggs, et al, ; Meltzer, Davis, et al, ) and difficult thoughts (Stremler et al, ).…”

“…As shown in Table 1, the articles included in this review also represent a range of different designs. Most studies used a cross-sectional design (Kim et al, 2017;McCann, 2008;McLoone et al, 2013;Meltzer, Biggs, et al, 2012;Meltzer, Davis, et al, 2012). One study used an explorative design (Edéll-Gustafsson et al, 2015), one study has a longitudinal design (Blomqvist et al, 2017), two have a qualitative and prospective descriptive design (Angelhoff et al, 2017;Heinemann et al, 2013), one study is a pilot study (Franck et al, 2014), and three studies used a prospective observational design, two qualitative and one quantitative.…”

“…Also included in the aims of the studies was the documentation of physiological, psychological and situational factors affecting fatigue among mothers (Kim et al, 2017). Other aims were as follows: prevalence estimates of self-report sleep quantity and quality among parents accommodated on the paediatric oncology ward (McLoone et al, 2013), and descriptions and measurement of sleep quantity and sleep patterns (Bevan et al, 2019;Nassery & Landgren, 2018), and additionally, factors affecting the sleep of parents with critically ill children (Stremler et al, 2014;Stremler, Haddad, Pullenayegum, & Parshuram, 2017) as well as strategies used to improve parents' sleep (Stremler, Dhukai, Wong, & Parshuram, 2011).…”

“…ies found combined psychological factors to be affecting sleep of parents staying overnight in the hospital(Kim et al, 2017;Stremler et al, 2011). Others identify isolated psychological factors where parents report stress(Edéll-Gustafsson et al, 2015), anxiety(Edéll- Gustafsson et al, 2015;McLoone et al, 2013), uncertainty, worries(Meltzer, Biggs, et al, 2012;Meltzer, Davis, et al, 2012) and difficult thoughts(Stremler et al, 2011).…”