Background: Children constitute a considerable part of the group of patients who are attended to in hospitals. The meeting between the child and the nurse is a fundamental interaction which reoccurs constantly within the health care system. How children perceive their time in hospital is interesting in order to understand how to structure and design the best possible care. Previous research has found that children experienced the hospital stay frightening. The importance of the first meeting with health care being positive is stressed, since it can be difficult to reverse and repair that experience at a latter occasion when new contact with health care might be necessary.

Aim: The aim of the study has been to describe the child's experience of being hospitalized.

Method: A method to contribute to evidence-based nursing with ground in analysis of qualitative research was performed. Analyses of nine scientific articles were carried out. The study has resulted in three themes and sevens sub-themes being disclosed and categorized.

Results: The main themes categorized were, Feelings experienced during hospital stay, importance of a positive response and the impact of the hospital environment.

Conclusion: Drawn inferences from the data were that it was important that the nurse had good theoretical knowledge of how children perceive their time in a hospital in order to create as positive and high quality conditions as possible for the child during his or her stay in hospital. When the nurse based the caring on each child's needs, met the child age appropriately and its' level of development was taken into consideration in addition to having designed the care to meet individual needs, conditions for engaging the child in the care were created. Play and distraction should be used in order to create an easy-going atmosphere to avoid all unnecessary suffering. Thus, the result might be a good relationship between the child and the nurse, leaving the child with a more over-all positive experience of the hospital stay.