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Parent Education Discharge/Instructions

We developed PEDI (Parent Education Discharge/Instructions) to educate caregivers and families on pre- and postoperative care for children undergoing heart surgery. To bring this project to life, we worked with a diverse group of stakeholders, including volunteer nurses and physicians, together with parents of children with heart disease and partner hospital representatives.

PEDI is used at our partner hospitals and other pediatric cardiac programs in five countries and reaches more than 10,000 children and their families every year.

Read the new COVID-19 and Congenital Heart Disease Fact Sheet for Patients and Families developed by Children’s HeartLink and the Global Alliance for Rheumatic and Congenital Hearts

Improving Patient Care

Hospitals in the developed world encourage parents to maintain close contact and to be intimately involved in the care of their critically ill child, especially during the days immediately after their child leaves the hospital. In the hospital, parents are often welcomed into pediatric intensive care units, provided they follow the required procedures.

In many parts of the world, parents might not have this opportunity. Cultural norms, clinical practices, heavy workloads and the educational level of the parents often present challenges and barriers. PEDI is designed to help overcome these challenges and barriers.

The discharge instructions we developed cover medication, wound care, physical activity, diet and other topics critical to a successful recovery from heart surgery. We know that delivering postoperative patient education through individualized content, presented in a variety of ways, in multiple sessions, results in improved patient outcomes.

Materials Available*

  • Two print-on-demand booklets are designed to be given to parents and other caregivers:
    • How to Prepare for Your Child’s Surgery: A Guide for Parents
    • What to Expect After Your Child’s Surgery: A Guide for Parents
  • Parent Education and Discharge Instructions, a low-literacy booklet of instructions with illustration and minimal text, available in 12 languages
  • Parent Education and Discharge Instructions, a low-literacy poster with illustration and minimal text, for use in the patient ward, available in two languages
  • PEDI Training Module, a web-based training module used to train nurses in educating parents and other caregivers, available in five languages

View the full PEDI training modules and download resource documents

Excellent Outcomes with PEDI

  • An observational study published in World Journal for Pediatric and Congenital Surgery reports a statistically significant increase in nurse knowledge post-program. Staveski SL, Zheleva B, Paul R, et al. Pediatric cardiac surgery Parent Education Discharge Instruction (PEDI) program: A pilot study. World Journal for Pediatric and Congenital Heart Surgery, 2015, Vol 6(1): 18-25.
  • A longer term study of parent education and infection outcomes also demonstrated success. Parent knowledge scores increased significantly, and surgical site infections decreased significantly, from 27% to 2%, after the program implementation. Staveski SL, Parveen VP, Madathil SB, et al. Patient education discharge instruction program for care of children at home after cardiac surgery in Southern India. Cardiology in the Young, 2016, Vol 26(6): 1213-2020.

*PEDI is open source and accessible to anyone interested in using. If you wish to adapt it to your setting or to translate it, please inform Children’s HeartLink and credit Children’s HeartLink to honor the many hours our volunteers have put into developing these resources.