Issues and purpose: To examine healthcare providers' attitudes toward parent participation in the care of their hospitalized child.
Design and methods: In this descriptive, comparative study, 504 pediatric healthcare providers were surveyed to measure attitudes toward parent participation.
Results: Results from 256 respondents indicated support for parent participation, but there was substantially less support for parental activities usually carried out by healthcare providers and those involving complex patient care tasks.
Practice implications: Although pediatric healthcare providers support parent participation, they tend to draw the line on what they believe are suitable parent activities. Newly developed pain standards and cardiopulmonary resuscitation guidelines incorporating parent participation have important implications for expanding the boundaries of parental involvement.