Readiness for Discharge in Parents of Hospitalized Children

The Family Perspective on Hospital to Home Transitions: A Qualitative Study

“…The amount of information families receive about new diagnoses or complications of an existing diagnosis, adjusted medication regimens, or need for outpatient follow-up can be overwhelming and affect a family's comfort and adherence to postdischarge care. 23,24 Families may also experience a sense of abandonment if they are unable to contact their inpatient health care providers for postdischarge guidance. 25 The design and implementation of interventions that address these issues and improve transitions are crucial to avoiding postdischarge complications.…”

“…The lack of discharge readiness and/or difficulty with coping skills after discharge is associated with greater odds of health service reutilization. 23,24 Finding ways to enhance a caregiver's readiness for discharge by improving communication and incorporating shared decision-making may decrease undesired postdischarge utilization while also increasing satisfaction.…”

Discharge Teaching, Readiness for Discharge, and Post-discharge Outcomes in Parents of Hospitalized Children

“…Thirty percent of these pediatric readmissions are estimated to be preventable (Toomey et al, 2016). When parents of hospitalized children report feeling unprepared for discharge, they have difficulty transitioning from hospital to home and managing their child's complex care needs (Weiss et al, 2008;Lerret & Weiss, 2011;Lerret et al, 2015), leading to problems that may result in returning to the hospital for an emergency department (ED) visit or readmission. In a recent study, both parents and providers consider readmissions and ED visits preventable, with parent education that prepares families for discharge and the transition to family management at home viewed as one of the major opportunities for improvement (Amin et al, 2016).…”

Teaching students to teach patients: A theory-guided approach

“…High quality education for nurses about patient teaching is a requisite for impacting patient health outcomes. [4,5] The Theoretical Framework to Guide Patient/Family Teaching brings together four evidence-based approaches to guide student learning about patient teaching. [27,38,47,56] Foundational education on each evidence-based approach can begin with learning about the underlying theory and outcomes achieved using the approaches.…”

“…[4][5][6][7] What we learned from this research was that the quality of discharge teaching impacted readiness for discharge and, ultimately, post-discharge coping difficulty and readmission. Specifically, we found that how nurses teach impacts these outcomes; [6] in the presence of poor quality teaching, content delivered is not necessarily content well received.…”