Association for the Wellbeing of Children in Healthcare
Helping you help kids
The effects of hospitalisation on children, young people and their families
What are the effects of hospitalisation on children, young people & their families?
Children
- Scared about being separated from their family
- Distressed from unfamiliar surroundings
- Don’t understand the pain
- Scared of the unknown
- Can be upset about the changes to their body and not being like other kids
- Not understand how something that hurts can actually help them
- Be afraid of being left in hospital
- Possible regression – they may begin to suck thumb, wet bed, want bottles and old comforts again
- Disinterest in eating
- Become more sensitive than usual
- Can become withdrawn, hypersensitive or act out
- Refuse medication – even if they normally wouldn’t
Young people
- Loss of independence and privacy
- Missing family and friends
- Acting out or challenging authority
- Disruption to normal sleep and routines
- Change of eating habits
- More emotional than normal
- Upset with time away from school, sports and activities
- Stuck in an unfamiliar environment with people they don’t know
- Feeling homesick
Families
- Worry
- Fear
- Distress
- Apprehension
- Helplessness
- Lonely or isolated
- Anger
- Unfamiliar surroundings
- Caught between not enough information and information overload
- Loss of privacy
- Stress of trying to manage life at home as well as life at the hospital