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“We are family, I got all my siblings with me?” – Bringing sibling support in PICU into focus

journal contribution
posted on 2025-11-19, 01:03 authored by Ashleigh ButlerAshleigh Butler, Jessica AppleyardJessica Appleyard, Joseph ManningJoseph Manning
<p dir="ltr">Excerpt from Introduction:</p><p dir="ltr">Each year, hundreds of thousands of children worldwide are admitted to a paediatric intensive care unit (PICU) because of critical illness or life-threatening injury. These children are admitted from diverse family units, where their wellbeing is closely intertwined with other members of their family, including parents, carers, siblings, extended family, and friends [1]. Within the PICU, we care for these children under the philosophy of family centred care (FCC), where the whole family is viewed as being included in, and impacted by, the experience [2,3]. However, in reality PICU is often an overwhelming and hostile environment for children and their families, and is not always welcoming of wider family inclusion or presence [3,4].</p>

Funding

Jessica Appleyard is supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship. Jessica would like to acknowledge the role of the Prince Henry’s Affiliates Scholarship administered by the Australian Nurses Memorial Centre in facilitating her postgraduate studies. Dr Ashleigh Butler is an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) recipient for research into ‘Supporting the inclusion of siblings when a family is in crisis’ (DE230101123).

Supporting the inclusion of siblings when a family is in crisis

Australian Research Council

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History

Publication Date

2025-12-01

Journal

Intensive and Critical Care Nursing

Volume

91

Article Number

104196

Pagination

3p.

Publisher

Elsevier

ISSN

0964-3397

Rights Statement

© 2025 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync-nd/4.0/).

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