The desire of parents to be involved and present

Background: Intensive care of children means not only caring for a child; it means care for the whole family. Aim: The aim of the study was to describe parents' experiences of having a critically ill child in an intensive care unit (ICU). Participants: A purposive sample of seven parents who had their child treated in an ICU during 2012 in Sweden. Design: The design uses an inductive, qualitative approach with data collected by means of qualitative interviews. Methods: The interviews were transcribed verbatim and subjected to qualitative content analysis. Results: The analysis resulted in one theme: the desire of parents to be involved and present, with four categories such as wanting to understand and know what is happening, feeling frustration about their child's care and treatment, a health care environment that arouses emotions, and needs for support and processing. Conclusion: It is of great importance to parents to be informed continuously about their child's condition and the care and treatment that are planned. This may increase parents' sense of ownership, control and security. Relevance to clinical practice: Providing answers to those questions that can be answered and being available to parents when they have questions about their critically ill child, the meaning of it all, and what the future will hold are suggested in clinical practice.