What constitutes the patient experience of children? Findings from the photo elicitation and the video diary study

Abstract

Patient experience (PX) is getting attention among researchers and healthcare service providers, but little is known about the experiences of child patients and how to explore those. This paper reports findings from a study in which two participatory research methods, photo elicitation and video diary, were applied to investigate the elements of children’s PX in the context of children’s hospital. The aim was to find out what elements constitute the PX of children aged 7–16 years. The research data were gathered in 2016–2017. Twenty-two child patients participated in the study: eight children aged between 7 and 10 in the photo elicitation part, and fourteen children aged from 10 to 16 in the video diary part. In the analysis, the data were first analyzed per research method but afterwards combined and analyzed together. Based on the analysis, four main themes of PX of children were identified: 1) hospital facilities and entertainment, 2) medical care, 3) social relationships with the hospital personnel and other people, and 4) feelings and coping with the illness. Feedback on the research methods from the participated children was mainly positive. Further work is needed to validate the findings and introduce new creative approaches to research PX of children of different ages.