Problem considered: Children with sickle cell disease account for 75,000 hospital days annually in the United States, yet little is known about how parents perceive the quality of hospital care these children receive.
Methods: Parents of hospitalized children that had sickle cell disease, cancer, or were admitted to the general pediatric service completed a validated survey assessing the parent-perceived quality of hospital care their children received. The primary outcome was parent-reported quality of care. A chi-square analysis was used to compare the percent of children with low quality care who had sickle cell disease with each control group.
Results: Parents of 112 children completed the survey; 17 children had sickle cell disease, 36 had cancer, and 59 were admitted to the general pediatric service. Parents of children with sickle cell disease were more likely to report low quality care compared to parents of children with cancer (29.4% versus 5.6%, P=0.017) and parents of general pediatric patients (29.4% versus 6.8%, P=0.011).
Conclusion: Parents of hospitalized children with sickle cell disease perceive their children's care as being of lower quality than parents of children with cancer or children admitted to the general pediatric service.