Experiences of trust in mothers of hospitalized children toward pediatric nurses

Trust is an essential component of qualified nursing care and correlated with mothers’ satisfaction during child’s hospitalization. This exploratory qualitative study was conducted to gain a better understanding of trust from mothers of hospitalized children toward pediatric nurses. Data were collected using semi-structured, in-depth interviews with eight mothers with recently hospitalized children. Collected data were analyzed using thematic analysis. As a result, three themes were identified from this study: “assessing the trustworthiness of pediatric nurses,” “overcoming emotional burden caused by the child's hospitalization,” and “newly recognizing the importance of pediatric nurses.” Seven sub-themes were identified. Mothers reported guilt and stress due to their responsibility as the primary caregiver when children were hospitalized. However, mothers felt empowered and gained confidence when trusting pediatric nurses, recognizing their importance, and accepting their help. The result highlights the essential nature of the mother’s trust in pediatric nurses, which in turn facilitated emotional support and empowerment for the mothers. Based on this study's insights into the unique experiences of trust from mothers of hospitalized children, pediatric nurses can explore strategies to facilitate trust-building. Based on these findings, pediatric nurses can develop trust-building strategies, tools to assess the level of trust, and interventions to facilitate trust-building.