Mothers often express intense stress and uncertainty when their children develop\nacute childhood illnesses and it is important for healthcare professionals\nto consider maternal uncertainty when providing support for mothers. This\nstudy aimed to examine maternal uncertainty about children�s hospitalization\ndue to acute childhood illnesses. We recruited 15 Japanese mothers of children\naged 1 - 12 months who had been hospitalized for the first time due to\nacute childhood illnesses, and conducted unstructured interviews with the\nparticipants at the time of discharge. Content analysis was used to examine\nuncertainty in their expression of their psychological state. Mothers� uncertainty\nwas classified into five categories: ambiguity about the severity of the\nillness, unpredictability of the course of the illness, discrepancy of the judgement\nwith healthcare professionals, lack of information about the causes of\nthe illness, and ambiguous appropriateness of management. The former three\ncategories were reported as uncertainty of mothers of children with chronic\ndiseases, while the latter two categories were particularly characteristic of\nmothers of children with acute childhood illnesses. It is, therefore, important\nto explore the causes of children�s illnesses and help mothers build confidence\nin their ability to manage their children�s illness before discharge.
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