Introduction

Aid to hospitalized children and their relatives is an issue which requires further research. Knowing the factors related to the anxiety that these children's relatives experience in the PIUC can broaden the scope to develop intervention models and Nursing Care Plans to address these issues and improve the intra-hospital family wellbeing.

Objective

To determine the relationship between the social, demographic, and hospital factors with the levels of anxiety experienced by the relatives of hospitalized patients in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU).

Methodology

Quantitative, descriptive, and transversal study. An own-designed instrument to identify social, demographic, and hospital factors, and the Spielberger's State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) to estimate the levels of anxiety were used.

Results

Thirty four relatives participated, 11.8% (4) were male and 88.2% (30) female. The average age was 29 years old. The anxiety state and trait scores suggest that, when information on shelters in not available, there are significant differences in the state of anxiety (X2 = 10.22, p=0.006) and trait of anxiety (X2 = 7.07, p=0.02) of the relatives.

Conclusions

The school level, as a social and demographic factor, had a strong impact on the levels of both state and trait anxiety. Among the hospital factors, not having information on shelters and not being supported generated the most anxiety.