Iran Journal of Nursing

  Background : Child hospitalization is one of the anxiety producing factors for both the child and his/her parents. Anxiety will delay the child recovery and decrease the parent's abilities in caring for their children. The anxiety may be present long after discharge.

  Objective : To determine the level of maternal anxiety after child's hospitalization and also before and after child's discharge from hospital.

  Design : This was a longitudinal study. The level of mother's anxiety was measured using spilbarger questionnaire at three stages of after hospitalization, before and after child's discharge .

  Samples : 70 mothers of hospitalized children (age 1-3) were selected through continuo's sampling.

  Results : There was a significant difference between the level of mother's anxiety after child hospitalization and before and after his/her discharge (PV= 0.000).

  Conclusion : According to mother's anxiety in three stage (after hospitalization, before and after discharge) researcher recommend that nurses, take a complete demographic history of mothers at the time of admission so that they can plan a program to decrease mother's anxiety and also provide them with a telephone number so that in case of any question they can in touch after their child's discharge.