Parental Experiences, Coping Strategies and Level of Satisfaction Following Paediatric Day - Case Surgery in a Tertiary Health Institution in Nigeria.

Background : Little is known about the home experience, coping strategies and level of satisfaction of parents following day-case surgery performed on their children in developing countries. Objective: To evaluate the experiences, coping strategies and level of satisfaction of parents following day case surgery performed on their children. Methodology: A 48 hour post-discharge survey of parents of 152 consecutive children who underwent day–case surgery over a period of 18 months was extracted from our routine database. Information obtained included, postoperative complications and treatment applied; parents’ coping strategies, use of primary care facilities following discharge; their level of satisfaction, or otherwise, of day case surgery performed on their children, postoperative pain control at home, their involvement in the postoperative care of their children, and how they found the nursing responsibility they had to bear. Results: There were142 (93.4%) males, and 10 (6.6%) females. The age ranged between 21days and 14years, with a mean age of 33.4 ± 34.4 months. The most common Surgical procedure was herniotomy, (132 or 86.8%), followed by orchidopexy (13or 8.6 %), and excision biopsy (7or 4.6 %). Eighty-eight parents (57.9%) reported one or more complications at home, with pain which occured in 69 (45.4%) children being the commonest. Although, this figure is statistically significant (p = 0.035), all the complications were minor; and majority of them were easily handled within the limit of the medical support services available within the community. None of the cases required hospital admission for management of complications. There was no mortality in our series. Although, a statistically significant number of parents (55 or 36.2%), p = 0.000, found the nursing responsibility they had to bear at home unacceptable, a higher proportion 89 (58.6%) found the responsibility acceptable or challenging, while 8 (5.8%) parents were indifferent. Virtually all, except one parent expressed satisfaction with their experiences of day–case treatment for their children, and 144 (94. 7%) of them would recommend similar treatment to others. Conclusion: Parental satisfaction with paediatric day-case surgery in our hospital is high. Although minor morbidities were experienced at home, they were not severe enough to overwhelm the coping abilities of the parents. Keywords: Day case, Parental experiences, coping strategies, satisfactio