Experiences of family caregivers caring for critically ill children hospitalized in a pediatric intensive care unit: a qualitative systematic review protocol.

Review objective: This review aims to synthesize the best available evidence on the experiences of family caregivers in caring for their critically ill children who have been hospitalized in a pediatric intensive care unit.

Introduction: The participation of family caregivers in providing health care for critically ill children is increasingly important. Family caregivers are defined as adult family members, including parents and siblings, and are often described as hidden patients, as their health can be neglected when caring for others. Understanding how family caregivers of critically ill children describe their experience will be beneficial in providing family-centered care to these children.

Inclusion criteria: This review will consider studies that include adult family caregivers caring for children hospitalized with critical illness in pediatric intensive care units. Any family with a child experiencing a life-threatening illness that may result in significant morbidity or mortality will be considered. Studies that disclose the physical, psychosocial, financial and spiritual experiences of family caregivers will be considered with no geographical limitation. Only English-language studies will be included, with no date limitation.

Method: MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Embase, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, Scopus, ASSIA, SciELO, and Google Scholar will be searched for relevant papers following the completion of the three-step search process. Retrieval of full-text studies, assessment of methodological quality and data extraction will be performed independently by two reviewers. Meta-aggregation will be performed, and a ConQual presented.