Purpose: After children are transferred from the PICU to the general ward, parents experience significant relocation stress due to drastic changes in the care environment and their roles, yet the internal mechanisms for alleviating this stress remain understudied. The purpose of this study is to examine the mediating role of care preparedness in the relationship between social support and relocation stress in parents of children transferred from the PICU and to provide empirical data for developing precise nursing interventions aimed at enhancing parental preparedness. Methods: A cross-sectional study design was adopted, 212 parents of children transferred out of the PICU from a tertiary Grade A specialized hospital in Guangzhou were selected as study participants. Assessments were conducted using the Family Relocation Stress Syndrome Scale (FRSS, total score range 17– 85, with lower scores indicating higher relocation stress), the Care Preparedness Scale (CPS, total score range 0– 32, with higher scores indicating better preparedness), and the Social Support Rating Scale (SSRS, total score range 12– 66, with higher scores indicating higher levels of social support). Pearson correlation analysis was used to explore relationships among the variables. Structural equation modeling and the bootstrap method (5000 resamples, 95% confidence interval) were employed to test the mediating effect of care preparedness. The total effect refers to the overall impact of social support on relocation stress, including both the direct effect and the indirect effect mediated through care preparedness. Results: The relocation stress score among parents was 60.25 ± 8.10, the social support score was 42.36 ± 7.31, and the care preparedness score was 24.19 ± 6.44. Relocation stress showed a moderate positive correlation with both care preparedness, and showed a weak positive correlation with social support (higher support and preparedness are associated with lower stress), while a weak positive correlation was found between social support and care preparedness. Care preparedness played a mediating role between social support and relocation stress, accounting for 29.3% of the total effect. Conclusion: Care preparedness is an important mediating link through which social support of parents of children transferred out of the PICU influences relocation stress. In clinical practice, healthcare professionals should systematically assess parents’ levels of social support, provide targeted structured transitional care education, focus on enhancing parents’ care preparedness, and thereby effectively alleviate their relocation stress. Keywords: relocation stress, social support, care preparedness, mediating effect, parents of children transferred from the PICU
Lin et al. (Fri,) studied this question.