401 Quality of communication with parents of critically ill infants

Abstract

Objectives/Goals: Communication between clinicians and parents of seriously ill infants is understudied. This study aims to 1) define high-quality communication with parents of critically ill infants and 2) evaluate the psychometric properties and validity of a measure of high-quality communication in parents of critically ill infants. Methods/Study Population: 1) Using participant observation and semi-structured interviews of 35 parents of hospitalized infants, I will conduct content analysis to describe high-quality prognostic communication with parents of infants in the pediatric intensive care unit. Using descriptions captured during participant observation and in semi-structured interviews, I will produce a novel definition of high-quality communication with parents of seriously ill infants. I will also explore parent experiences of communication by race. 2) I will validate a measure of communication quality in parents of 200 neonatal and pediatric intensive care unit patients. I will use factor analysis to evaluate the extent to which responses map onto an established construct and assess dimensionality and reliability. Results/Anticipated Results: 1) I anticipate finding that identification of high-quality communication will be consistent between participant observation and interviews and will track with Wreesmann’s framework. I hypothesize that minoritized parents are more likely to receive low-quality communication. 2) I hypothesize that the measure of communication quality will be valid and reliable in the neonatal and pediatric intensive care units. Discussion/Significance of Impact: I will explore communication quality in a novel setting for which limited data are currently available, establishing a measure for future pediatric communication research and identifying targets for interventions to improve communication quality. Better understanding of communication with parents of sick infants will lead to improved outcomes.