Parental presence, participation, and engagement in paediatric hospital care: A conceptual delineation

Abstract

AimTo delineate between the concepts of parental presence, participation, and engagement in paediatric hospital care.DesignThe concepts' uses in the literature were analysed to determine attributes, influences, and relationships.MethodsDelineations of each concept are established and conceptual definitions are proposed following Morses' methods.Data SourcesMEDLINE (PubMed); CINAHL, PsycINFO, Sociology Source Ultimate (EBSCOhost); Embase, Scopus (Elsevier); Google Scholar. Search dates October 2021, February 2023.ResultsMultinational publications dated 1991–2023 revealed these concepts represent a range of parental behaviours, beliefs, and actions, which are not always perceptible to nurses, but which are important in family‐integrated care delivery. Parental presence is the state of a parent being physically and/or emotionally with their child. Parental participation reflects parents' performing caregiving activities with or without nurses. Parental engagement is a parents' state of emotional involvement in their child's health and the ways they act on their child's behalf.ConclusionThese concepts' manifestations are important to parental role attainment but may be inadequately understood and considered by healthcare providers.ImplicationsNurses have influence over parents' parental presence, participation, and engagement in their child's care but need support from healthcare institutions to ensure equitable family‐integrated care delivery.ImpactProblem: Lack of clear definition among these concepts results in incomplete and at times inequitable family‐integrated care delivery. Findings: Parental presence is an antecedent to parental participation, and parental presence and participation are elements of parental engagement. The concepts interact to influence one another. Impact: Hospitalized children, their families, nurses, and researchers will benefit through a better understanding of the concepts' attributes, interactions, and implications for enhanced family‐integrated care delivery.