The Visiting Child and His Family in ICU

Evaluation in Children of the Psychological Impact of the Visit of a Hospitalized Relative in ICU

According to literature, it's difficult to evaluate the impact of the visit of the child in ICU. Currently, no recommendations are available regarding welcome and accompany children who visit their relative hospitalized in ICU. Collaboration between humanities and medical sciences brings to this question a complementary look. Majority of studies investigated the question of the impact of young child ICU visit in a unidirectional linear causality scheme visit = psychopathological impact. The visit of the child in ICU should not be considered as an isolated event whose objective characteristics would be alone vectors of trauma. Contrary, the child visit must be apprehended in relation to the quality of the supports on which the child can count. The investigators hypothesize that children can overcome the visit of a kin hospitalized in ICU if accompanying people can support the child and contain, before and after the visit, the emotions of the child.

Inclusion Criteria:

• family groups in which at least one child aged 6 to 14 years having expressed the wish to visit his/her hospitalized relative
• family groups in which the non-hospitalized parent has expressed the wish to accompany his/her child during the visit
• parent hospitalized in ICU is at least 18 years old
• informed consent of children, non-hospitalized and/or hospitalized relatives
• informed consent of the accompanying caregiver

Exclusion Criteria:

• moribund patient
• child unaccompanied by his/her parent/relative during the visit
• non-hospitalized non-French-speaking parent/relative (need to be able to answer the questionnaires)
• child benefiting from a psychological follow-up prior to the hospitalization of his/her parent
• non French-speaking child
• child under 6 years old or older than 14
• hospitalized relative who died before the proposed interview with the child (particular attention will be carry out to the interview conditions. The loss of the hospitalized parent will not allow for an interview on the experience of the visit).