A Pan-European evaluation of residential burns camps for children and young people.
BACKGROUND
Residential camps for children who have experienced a severe burn have existed for over 20 years. The idea stemmed from recognition that children with burns face additional challenges, both physical and psychological, and therefore need long-term psychosocial support away from the acute care setting. Whilst individual programmes have published positive evaluation findings, there have been no cross-regional evaluations undertaken to date.


METHODS
Five European burn camp programmes agreed to take part in a cross-regional study to assess the benefits as reported by participants. Shared objectives included: giving children the opportunity to experience success through overcoming challenging activities, enhancing self-esteem and confidence and enabling children to share their experiences of having a burn with peers and staff in a supportive environment. Each site collected qualitative feedback from children, parents and staff using a common framework. Simple Likert scale data were also collected. Each site coded responses into themes which were then collated at one site.


RESULTS
104 children, 57 parent/carers and 50 staff took part in the cross-regional evaluation. Children were aged between 5 and 18 years. 98% of children reported that they had enjoyed camp, in particular the activities and the sense of achievement they brought, along with the ability to gain support and friendship from peers and staff. A large proportion felt that they had benefitted from having the opportunity to share their experiences of having a burn with peers, leaving them feeling less isolated. In addition some comments related to boosting confidence and self-esteem and mastering new skills. Parent/carers again cited the increase in their child's confidence in self and appearance as key benefits of the camps. Staff reports also included the benefits for burn care teams by increasing awareness of patient needs and improving multidisciplinary team working.


CONCLUSIONS
The study highlighted the generic benefits of burn camps by collapsing themes across five different sites. Whilst this minimised the localised differences between camps, further research could be used to analyse these subtle differences in greater detail. Some consideration was made of the language barriers between sites which could have effected the interpretation of some of the individual themes. A multi-methodological approach could be used to reduce this effect in future.
Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Booth Hall Children's Hospital, Department of Clinical Psychology, Blackley, Manchester M9 7AA, UK. sarah.gaskell@cmft.nhs.uk
S L
SL
Gaskell
S
S
Cooke
M
M
Lunke
J
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O'Shaughnessy
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M
Kazbekov
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Zajicek
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000293:Adolescent; D002056:Burns / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005060:Europe; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology; D012114:Residential Treatment / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards*; D012649:Self Concept; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires