PURPOSE
This study was designed to analyze recent trends in research about caregivers of hospitalized children in Korea and to suggest future research directions in this area.
METHODS
Eighty one studies selected from http://www.kan.or.kr, www.childnursing.or.kr, www.riss4u.net, and www.ndsl.kr published from 1995 to 2011 were used. The analysis framework of concepts was derived from client domain (Kim, 2000) and knowledge type (Kim et al., 2004).
RESULTS
In terms of research design, nonexperimental studies (82.7%) were the most frequent, followed by experimental studies (14.8%) and qualitative studies (2.5%).
Mothers were the most frequent caregivers, and hospitalization was the most frequent health problem of the children. In terms of categories of the concepts, 35 (39.3%) studies included essentialistic concepts like coping and adaptation, 15 (16.9%) studies included problematic concepts like anxiety and uncertainty, and 39 (43.8%) studies included health-care experiential concepts like educational needs and nursing needs. In term of knowledge types, there were 35 (39.3%) studies of the explanatory knowledge type, 44 (49.5%) descriptive ones, and 10 (11.2%) prescriptive ones.
CONCLUSION
The results indicate that further research is necessary on problematic concepts and prescriptive knowledge types for child health nursing practice which will lead to expanding nursing knowledge.
