Purpose or Case Report: Little is known about how families of children undergoing interventional radiology (IR) procedures experience their interactions with IR teams; therefore, we conducted a qualitative study to explore and learn from families experience with IR teams in order to educate pediatric IR staff and ultimately improve delivery of care.
Methods & Materials: We conducted semi-structured interviews with 30 families of children (outpatient and inpatient) who recently underwent an interventional radiology procedure. Questions solicited information about their understanding of the procedures, their experiences with scheduling, and their pre- and post-procedure interactions with IR teams. We developed codes from important concepts in the data and revised codes based on team consensus. Four research assistants then applied codes to interview transcripts. The team reconvened to arrange codes into thematic categories that illustrated families experience with IR teams.
Results: Families identified a range of facilitators and barriers to overall positive experiences of family’s experiences with IR staff. Facilitators included (a) taking a role of advocate for their child, specifically one parent emphasized “I feel like it was good that I asked, because I think that the information he gave me was valuable, and I don’t know if otherwise anyone would have told me.” (b) receiving clear and useful education about the procedure and (c) the reputation of the hospital. Barriers to an overall positive experience with IR teams included (a) confusion about the location of the IR suite and (b) misalignment and uncertainty about what to expect pre/post procedure, one parent highlighted “it might have been helpful had I known roughly how long I was going to be there. I was afraid to just step out…because I didn’t want to miss somebody coming out to get me.” Reported facilitators and barriers were not substantially different between families whose children were inpatient vs outpatient.
Conclusions: Adding IR specific-findings to the patient experience literature, we found that families express a range of experiences with IR teams; while most reinforce existing, positive interactions there is room for improvement. Relatively simple steps to improve families’ experience (e.g., signage) in addition to more complex communications education could advance the delivery of care by IR teams.