Information overload and parental perspectives on information provided to parents/carers of paediatric patients undergoing elective surgical procedures

When parents are expected to play a significant role in the management of their children’s health perioperatively, information overload for parents could have particularly detrimental consequences. Our study investigated information communication and overload in 380 parents of children undergoing any elective surgical procedure at our institution. Participants completed an online questionnaire and were asked to respond to a newly designed Information Overload scale based on a modified 5 item Cancer Information Overload Scale and an 8-item atrial fibrillation information overload scale. Nineteen respondents (5%) identified as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. More than a quarter of respondents (n = 102, 27%) primarily spoke a language other than English at home. 56% of respondents (n = 211) indicated that neither themselves nor any of their children had undergone a similar surgery in the past. Most respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed with the majority of the 5-item Information Overload scale statements. University undergraduates had lower total information overload score on average (-1.63, p = 0.002). People who spoke a language other than English had higher total score on average (0.98, p