The findings from this study indicate that parental
anxiety is highest at the time of acute hospitalization.
These findings were not unexpected because the liter-ature supports that the time of diagnosis and hos-pitalization is the time of greatest stress for parents
(Aytch, Hammond, & White, 2001; Oostrom et al.,
2001). Parenting a child acutely hospitalized with a
neurological diagnosis produces anxiety related to
management of the child’s condition. This anxiety is
often attributable to the uncertainty of a child’s prog-nosis when they are admitted to the hospital to man-age neurological symptoms (Lv et al., 2009).
These findings have important implications for
designing and implementing future research studies
with this population of vulnerable parents because
most education is provided to parents during the hos-pitalization when their anxiety level is at its highest.
This can interfere with their ability to learn and retain
important information. Intervention studies need to
acknowledge this and tailor the delivery of informa-tion to ensure parents are able to understand the infor-mation and feel they have the ability and confidence
to utilize their knowledge to care for their child.