ABSTRACT
Objective:
to understand the experience of families of living with children and adolescents with bladder and bowel dysfunction.
Methods:
a qualitative phenomenological interpretive research carried out through an in-depth open interview with parents of children and adolescents linked to Advanced Practice Nursing clinic in pediatric urology.
Results:
the following representative categories of the families’ experiences emerged: Knowledge and learning: building family knowledge; Living with the children’s BBD: symbolic representations; Management and adaptation to the children’s BBD: reorganizing family life.
Final considerations:
the experience of families related to positive and negative meanings, presence or absence of previous experiences, information gaps, learning process and access to specialized professional follow-up. Follow-up by nurses is important in pediatric urology care for the learning and consolidation of specific knowledge about bladder and bowel dysfunction.
Descriptors:
Family; Child; Adolescent; Pediatric Nursing; Advanced Practice Nursing