Maternal preferences regarding counseling of congenital heart disease in their children at a tertiary care hospital
Communicating bad news to mothers of children with congenital heart disease (CHD) is a challenging task and an ethical dilemma for the physician. It is never a pleasant task but breaking it at the wrong time or in the wrong way can be even worse, so it’s important to know the best approaches to brea...
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| Published in: | Journal Of The Saudi Heart Association Vol. 25; no. 2; p. 155 |
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| Main Authors: | , , , |
| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Elsevier B.V
01-04-2013
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| Online Access: | Get full text |
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| Summary: | Communicating bad news to mothers of children with congenital heart disease (CHD) is a challenging task and an ethical dilemma for the physician. It is never a pleasant task but breaking it at the wrong time or in the wrong way can be even worse, so it’s important to know the best approaches to breaking bad news.
To know the preferences of mothers regarding breaking bad news about the diagnosis of congenital heart disease in their children.
The study was conducted in our Pediatric Cardiology Department between 1st October 2010 to 1st September 2012. A cross sectional interview was conducted including Saudi mothers whose children had CHD. The questionnaire consisted of 27 questions. Verbal consent was obtained.
Total 889 mothers were included in the study and 39 refused to participate in the survey. The results revealed that 58.4% mothers were from urban areas while 41.6 from villages and 98.3% were educated. Based on answers to questionnaire we found 20 different preferences. Counseling is preferred: immediately after diagnosis 92.7%, directly in person 99.9%, both parents present 96.4%, single session counseling 92.2%, detailed counseling 93.9%, detailed medical report 98.2%, isolated and quiet place of counseling 64.3%, counseling with help of heart model 85.3%. Most mothers want counseling by their primary physician 92.3%. The mothers accepted to have their nurse present at time of counseling but not relative or friend.
Counseling parents about diagnosis of congenital heart disease in their children is a challenging task for physician and an ethical dilemma. The diagnosis of any congenital heart disease in children leads to parental anxiety. Our results confirm previously reported preferences by mothers from western countries and Egypt to be told early, detailed and in person. We found that mothers want a completely quiet room, presence of nurse and detailed counseling as well as detailed medical report both in paper and electronic form. They want counseling to be done by their primary physician.
Our study delineates that mothers of patients with CHD in our area have clear preferences for how bad news should be conveyed to them. We believe that following these directions might reduce their anxiety to an accepted level. |
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| ISSN: | 1016-7315 2212-5043 |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.jsha.2013.03.138 |