Parent Education in a Children's Hospital.

This article evaluates a program of parent education in a children's hospital. Parent education becomes a medical as well as a psychologic necessity, therefore, if the parent is to bring reality to circumstances, which may appear highly enigmatic to the child, and also where proper follow up care must be assured. The physician must depend upon the parent for the child's adherence to the prescribed program of prophylaxis and follow up care. The parent actually becomes a surrogate physician in those cases where the child will require prolonged convalescent and prophylactic care. Parents must, therefore, have not only the best intentions and the fervent hope of his child's recovery, but also the facts necessary to facilitate that recovery. Illness and hospitalization in childhood have frequently been called both disruptive and potentially psychologically traumatic. These bad effects can be minimized by the continued participation of the parent, especially the mother, in those aspects of the child's daily routine which hospital circumstances permit.