Hospital-based school for children with chronic illness in Taiwan

Pedagogical practices developed with children through hospital classes: An integrative literature review

OBJECTIVE

To analyze the evidence available in the literature on the pedagogical practices developed with children through hospital classes.

METHOD

An integrative review was conducted on July 20, 2022, in Scopus, MEDLINE/PubMed, CINAHL, LILACS, Web of Science, ERIC, Educ@, and Scielo using the following descriptors in English, Portuguese, and Spanish, extracted from DECS/MeSH, CINAHL, Brased/INEP, and ERIC Thesaurus: "Child, Hospitalized", "Education, Special", "Education Department, Hospital", "Hospital Classroom", "Hospital Class", "Child Rearing", "Educational Practices", "Early Childhood Education", "Education", "Hospital Pedagogy", and "Hospital Special Class". No time restriction was applied. The EndNot Web reference manager and the Rayyan software were used to select studies, and later, the methodological rigor and level of evidence were assessed.

RESULTS

The 22 articles described pedagogical practices, including ludic activities, individualized work, working with regular school content, stimulation activities, pedagogical and dialogic listening, learning based on the exchange of knowledge, video games, computational robotics, and theatrical performance.

CONCLUSION

Although difficulties were identified in implementing pedagogical practices in the hospital, they were shown to allow educational continuity and clinical improvement of hospitalized children.

IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE

Studies on the educational process within the hospital setting can contribute to the development of public policies and the guarantee of the right to education for hospitalized children.

DESCRIPTORS

Special education; Hospital education department; Hospitalized child; Child rearing; Teaching.

The setting up and running of a children's activity group and learning centre for children with haematological and oncology conditions

BACKGROUND

Children diagnosed with haematological and oncology conditions spend long periods of time undergoing treatments in hospital. Treatments are intensive and may include combinations of chemotherapy, radiation, surgery and bone marrow transplants. This often means that they have prolonged hospital stays away from family, friends and familiar environments.

AIM

We aimed at starting an activity group and learning centre based in the hospital setting for children undergoing treatment for haematological and oncology conditions.

METHODS

The activity group and learning centre was set up in a tertiary care hospital under the department of Paediatric Haematology, Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplantation with the support of a local NGO called 'Samiksha Foundation' in Bangalore, India. Children who participated in the programme engaged in learning through participation in the activity groups which engaged in academic and non-academic activities. The activity group and learning centre was piloted in April and May of 2019. During the pilot sessions, 156 children participated in the group. Children of all ages were welcome to attend and were given activities based on their age and learning levels. Until March 2020, the group has seen over 600 children in attendance.

RESULTS

This methods report examines various aspects of the activity group such as setting up of the activity groups, how they are run, the activities conducted in the groups and the effects the group has had on children and their families as reported by them while undergoing treatment.

CONCLUSION

The overall response to the activity groups was positive and widely accepted among our patient community. The intervention proved to be effective, easy to implement and relatively inexpensive. We hope that by sharing data from our centre, more paediatric units may be able to implement such groups for children.