When educating parents about abusive head trauma, or shaken baby syndrome, nurses reported language barriers as a key obstacle to meeting state guidelines, according to a study recently published in the Journal of Trauma Nursing.
For the study, more than 150 nurses from 13 Massachusetts birthing hospitals filled out a web-based questionnaire on SBS education. Nurses reported language barriers as the most prominent obstacle to providing parents with quality information regarding SBS. These barriers included limited access to translators and a dearth of informational brochures printed in languages other than English.
Supportive leadership and consistent access to multilingual pamphlets were linked to an increase in nurses meeting Massachusetts' requisite guidelines for SBS education.
The implications of the study's findings are limited due a low response rate of 17 percent.
SBS is the leading cause of nonaccidental death in children under 24 months and occurs in as many as 1,600 children annually in the U.S.
Study author Leslie Rideout, PhD, of Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts Medical Center, Kiwanis Pediatric Trauma Institute in Boston, wrote, "Resources such as SBS/AHT brochures in different languages, and translators to facilitate SBS/AHT education for non-English-speaking parents/guardians need to be available for nurses."
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