Effect of Children Illness and Hospitalization on Maternal Adopted Disciplinary Strategies

Abstract

Background: Disciplining a child is one of the most challenging parental tasks. The process is even harder when the child is either acutely or chronically ill. Pediatric nurse is to be a very important resource person for the parents in the time of hospitalization of their children. Aim: to assess effect of children illness and hospitalization on maternal adopted disciplinary strategies. Design: Descriptive correlation research design was utilized to fit the aim of the study. Setting: The study was conducted in pediatric surgery and medicine wards at Cairo University Specialized Pediatric Hospital. Sample: A convenient sample of 100motherswere participated in the current study. The first 50 children with their mothers was collected from the medicine ward and the second 50 children and their mothers was participated from the surgery ward. Data collection tools: 1) Structured interview questionnaire, related to the personal characteristics of children and their mothers; 2) Parenting Practices Questionnaire (Mothers' Form). Results: The study results showed that the physical stressor was the majority stressor expressed by the mothers, the authoritarian disciplinary strategies (verbal hostility, corporal punishment, and non-reasoning disciplinary strategies) respectively were of the highest adopted means. There were highly significant negative correlations between total mean scores of mothers adopted disciplinary strategy and child's age, gender, mother's age, education and place of residence. Conclusion: mothers of ill hospitalized children adopted authoritarian disciplinary strategies namely verbal hostility, corporal punishment and non-reasoning. Factors affecting the adopted disciplinary strategy were child age, gender, mother age and education and place of residence. Recommendation: there is a need to train pediatric nurses to provide help to mothers of hospitalized children in selecting appropriate disciplinary strategies that foster children's development rather than of negative effect.