Playful Communication in Hospitals

Play is crucial to children’s health and wellbeing. For children who spend time in hospital, play has a positive impact on wellbeing and ability to cope with fear, pain, and treatment.

However, play for children in hospitals is seriously under-resourced. 77% of Trusts and Health Boards state they have no budget for play resources (Starlight, 2023), and children and parents have called for more play opportunities that enable them to interact with others.

Connecting with others through play is vitally important when hospital settings are often frightening, confusing, and lonely.

Project aims

Our goal is to understand children’s perspectives of playful communication with the people our partners encounter in their hospital journey. We will achieve this by working with children and young people who have experienced hospitalisation, to find out:

• their experiences of playful communication in hospital
• the impact of playful communication on children and young people’s experiences in hospital and their wellbeing
• who they experience playful communication with
• the value of experiencing playful communication in their hospital journey

This research includes the use of interviews with children and young people, designed using developmentally appropriate playful methods with our partners – Play Wales and Starlight.

Together, our aim is to identify pathways for improving children’s experiences when in hospital.

Funding and partners

With funding from the Economic and Social Research Council, in a Harmonised Impact Accelerator Account award, we have partnered with Play Wales, who are the national charity for children’s play, and Starlight, who support children to experience play during treatment, care, and recovery from illness.

Contacts