Child care workers in day hospital kindergartens are highly important as they play a significant role in the treatment and rehabilitation process during the children's stay at the hospital. Day hospitals admit sick children and children with physical injuries (such as head injuries, bone fractures, etc.) that need to stay under observation. During their stay, children undergo examinations, tests, therapy, and surgery that can cause fear and distrust. Their parents experience unpleasant moments as well. Kindergartens in day hospitals employ child care workers whose task is to ensure that sick and injured children and their parents have as pleasant and friendly of a stay at the hospital as possible.
For the empirical part of our thesis, we used a specifically designed questionnaire to determine the importance of hospital kindergartens for three groups consisting of 50 persons each: health professionals, teachers, and parents. We found that all three groups felt strongly about the importance of kindergartens in day hospitals. Parents found it important that, during their time at the day hospital, children were not placed in regular hospital rooms, but playrooms in which child care workers let them move around, explore new ideas, and provide opportunities for creative cooperation. For health professionals, the most important thing was that the children spent time in hospital playrooms as it would improve their emotional states. Teachers found it important that children were taught by child care workers through play how to adjust to life with illness or after injury. Statistically significant differences between the groups were found in their attitudes towards the importance of kindergartens in day hospitals. Compared to teachers, parents felt it was more important for childcare workers to visit the children and encourage them to participate in various activities to alleviate the distress they experienced because of surgical procedures, hospital examinations, and therapy. In additional, they believed it essential that child care workers took care to improve the emotional and social states of both the children and the parents, as well as create a stimulating environment with diverse opportunities for interaction. In addition, parents wanted their children to be placed in playrooms rather than hospital rooms. Compared to teachers, parents preferred hospital playrooms because of their positive impact on children's emotional states. They also agreed that child care workers were of great support to their children during their stay at the day hospital.
Health professionals, on the other hand, found it more important than teachers that child care workers visited the children and encouraged them to participate in various activities and believed that play helped ease the distress children felt because of surgical procedures, hospital examinations, and therapy. They also found it important for childcare workers to create a stimulating environment with a varied selection of activities, for hospital rooms to be replaced with playrooms, and that they were acquainted with the possibility for children to be enrolled into the hospital kindergarten. Compared to teachers, health professionals found playrooms to be more important because of their positive impact on the emotional states of the children and that the child care workers were of great support to the parents of the children during their children's stay in the hospital.
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