Mothering a hospitalized child: it’s the ‘little things’ that matter

Abstract

This article reports one aspect of a phenomenological study that described the lived experience of mothering a child hospitalized with acute illness or injury. The significance for mothers that nurses do the ‘little things’ emerged in considering the implications of this study’s findings for nurses in practice. Seven mothers whose child had been hospitalized in the 12 months prior to the first interview agreed to share their stories. The resulting data were analysed and interpreted using van Manen’s interpretation of phenomenology. This description of mothering in a context of crisis is useful in the potential contribution it makes to nurses’ understanding of mothers’ experience of the hospitalization of their children. It supports the philosophy of family-centred care and highlights the ability of individual nurses to make a positive difference to a very stressful experience by acknowledging and doing ‘little things’, because it is the little things that matter to the mothers of children in hospital.