Factors that impact data collection from children

During a 4-month pilot study designed to measure physical changes in nine hospitalized children with cancer, several factors emerged that helped or hindered data collection. We hope our experience may provide useful information to nursing researchers about strategies that impact data collection from hospitalized children. Rapport with the child and parents and with the nursing staff was identified as the most important aid in data collection. Means by which these relationships were initiated and maintained included assessing and addressing the childʼs cognitive level, recognizing the childʼs limits of cooperation, meeting some psychosocial needs of the child and parent, and collecting data within the structure existing on the hospital station. Flexibility of investigators in collecting data around the childʼs physical care and therapeutic and diagnostic procedures was identified as a necessary condition for data collection. Incomplete data resulted from several factorsthe childʼs limits of cooperation, the childʼs busy schedule, and absences from the hospital. Discrepancies between the child, the parent, the nursing staff, and records as data sources were noted. Recommendations to those interested in collecting data on children include establishing rapport with the child, parent, and nursing staff; meeting some of the childʼs and parentsʼ psychosocial needs; deferring to the childʼs condition when appropriate; experiencing a tool before using it with children; and developing research collegially with a station nurse.