Exploring Coping Skills Of Hospitalized Children: A Children’s Book Proposal

Hospitalization is not an easy challenge to face, especially for children. Hospital stays typically involve uncomfortable or painful procedures experienced in unfamiliar environments with unfamiliar people. Children may become fearful in anticipation of, or during hospital stays. Because of their developmental level, children ages 5-9 years old need effective coping skills that allow them to navigate stressors that come with hospitalization. Children ages 5-9 are especially vulnerable to hospital stressors and in need of effective coping skills due to high rates of hospitalization. Along with these children, parents and siblings also need effective coping skills and knowledge of hospital stressors to maintain their own health and provide support for the patient. The implementation of an interactive children’s book intervention would be beneficial to pediatric hospital patients, their siblings and their parents. The proposed intervention will incorporate knowledge from Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development, family emotional systems theory, research on common hospital stressors, and previous evidence of the effectiveness of children’s books about hospitalized children.