This qualitative study aimed to analyze the relationships between nurses and the families during their children's hospitalization and investigate how the family had participated in the care. Empirical data was collected through participant observation and semi-structured interview. The data interpretation was based on foundations of thematic analysis. The results have shown that the relationships between nurses and families during the children's hospitalization have not reached their needs, compromising the assistance to the duo child-family frame. These relationships are objective, concise, formal and unilateral, with nursing predominance. It was noticed that the families were included in the implementation of the child care, although it had been a negligence of care co-participation by nurses, and even a negotiation of such actions, taking them to reflect on these relationships so that the duo child-family assistance can be reasoned by the principle of integrality.
Pediatric nursing; Hospitalized child; Family; Professional-family relationships