Parents' preferred child health information sources: implications for nursing practice.
OBJECTIVE
To ascertain parents' preferences in sources of health information concerning their children's general health care needs, and caring for their children when they are sick.


METHODS
Exploratory/descriptive design. A telephone survey secured data for the study and qualitative content analysis and descriptive statistics were used for analysis.


METHODS
Part 2 of a larger study in which Part I evaluated parents' satisfaction with a paediatric telephone triage service. One hundred of the 101 parents who were recruited for Part 1 of the study participated in Part 2, an examination of parents' preferences in information sources relating to their child's health.


METHODS
Parents' preferences in child health information sources varied according to the perceived severity of their child's illness.


RESULTS
Parents frequently selected more than one item on a list of health information sources provided. In a non-urgent situation when children were sick a total of 170 selections were made by parents, with 'telephone advice line' the source most frequently selected (58, 34%), followed by general practitioner (27, 15.8%). In an emergency situation the most frequently selected information source was again 'telephone advice line' (74, n=129, 57.4%), followed by 'other' (31, n=129, 24.3%) often identified as relating to dialing '000' (Australia's emergency services number). Finally, when parents required information about the general health care needs of their child, 'other' (most frequently identified as books) was selected on 40 (n=185, 21.6%) occasions, followed by child health clinic (35, n= 185, 18.9%).


CONCLUSIONS
Parents prefer to receive information about the health care needs of their child from another person rather than a printed or audio-visual source.
Youth and Family Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Faculty of Health, The University of Newcastle & Hunter New England Health, New South Wales, Australia. Diana.Keatinge@newcastle.edu.au
Diane
D
Keatinge
D001294:Attitude to Health; D002648:Child; D002662:Child Health Services; D003258:Consumer Behavior / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D015277:Hotlines / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D007255:Information Services; D009517:New South Wales; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D010865:Pilot Projects