Every year vast numbers of children are admitted to hospital. For example, more than 1 in 10 preschoolers in England (MacFaul & Werneke, 2001) and over 2 million children under 15 years in America (Popovic & Hall, 2001) have a hospital stay each year. Indeed, it has been estimated that around half of the population in many countries will have at least one hospital admission during childhood (Schmidt, 1997).

Recent advances in medical treatment have meant that an increasing number of children are treated on an outpatient or day surgery basis. As a consequence, a high proportion of child patients who remain in hospital have complicated or chronic conditions. A further result of improvements in medical practice is that compared with previous decades, children are far more likely to survive birth trauma, severe injuries or illnesses. In the case of childhood cancer, the five-year survival rates have increased from less than 30% in the 1960s to nearly 80% in the late 1990s (Smith & Hare, 2004). Nonetheless, there remains a high emotional cost for children and their parents as many of these patients undergo repeated hospitalizations and prolonged, demanding treatment.

Hospitalized children and their parents have to cope with a variety of stressors. These include factors directly relevant to the illness or injury, such as physical discomfort, loss of autonomy, absences from school, the effects of medication and changes in family interactions.