Conclusions: The needs of the population included in this survey, showed the importance to consider cognitive (necessity of obtaining clear and extensive information), social (maintaining everyday relationships), emotional (illness and its diagnostic and therapeutic procedures often generate mood disorders), and practical (environmental and architectural aspects can lead to either an improvement or a worsening of the hospitalisation perception) factors. All of these factors have shown a beneficial contribution, leading to an earlier recovery of health. (C) 2016 Sociedad Chilena de Pediatria. Published by Elsevier Espana, S.L.U. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license.