Primary caregivers' evaluation of a burns rehabilitation programme at the Red Cross Childrens' Hospital

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT:A bum injury is an injury for life, causing scarring on a physical, emotional and psychologicallevel. For these individuals, rehabilitation is a vital aspect of regaining their lives. The bumsunit at the Red Cross Children's Hospital aims to provide a comprehensive health care service toall children who have suffered from a bum injury. The service is enveloped by aninterdisciplinary team approach to management. The burns team perceives the rehabilitationprogramme to be an effective one, but this has never been evaluated. The researcher has theperception that the primary caregivers are the people who could evaluate the bums unit at theRed Cross Children's Hospital.Hence the aim of this study was to determine how primary caregivers evaluated the rehabilitationof a child at the burns unit of the Red Cross Children's Hospital.The design of the study was of a retrospective, descriptive and analytical nature. The studypopulation consisted of all primary caregivers of patients who have been managed in the burnsunit at the Red Cross Children's Hospital, from the period of 1 June 2001 to 30 July 2003. Asample size of 30 primary caregivers, who suited the inclusion and exclusion criteria, wererandomly chosen. They were all interviewed using questionnaires that were compiled by theresearcher. Quantitative and qualitative data was collected during the interviews.Results on the evaluation of aspects such as management in hospital, caregiver involvement,discharge planning and rehabilitation outcome, showed that primary caregivers found mostaspects to be satisfactory at the burns unit of Red Cross Children's Hospital. The scores on thelevel of satisfaction of the above aspects were between 86% and 100% for management, between94%-97% for discharge planning, 97% for caregiver involvement, and 75%-100% forrehabilitation outcome. Factors that were reported to be unsatisfactory were pain management,the child's psychological outcome and service and fit of pressure garments.Recommendations regarding pain management and reintegration of the child into the communitywere made to team members of the unit. The urgent need for a full time psychologist wasadvocated to the hospital management. These recommendations were based on the findings ofthis study.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University