An Exploratory Study of ICU Pediatric Nurses' Feelings and Coping Strategies after Experiencing Children Death

"Patient dignity can be ensured by providing adequate health care": A phenomenological analysis on survival strategies of military nurses

Background

The devastating COVID-19 outbreak has considerably influenced basic human healthcare needs. Due to healthcare organizational limitations, workload, and a shortage of healthcare professionals, particularly military nurses in developing countries, faced critical situations in dealing with COVID-19 patients. However, little is known about the survival strategies military nurses used while caring for coronavirus-infected patients.

Aims

This study aimed to investigate the survival strategies that inspired military nurses to manage COVID-19 patients in Bangladesh.

Methods

This study employed the phenomenology of practice framework developed by Max van Manen. Fourteen military nurses were purposefully selected to participate in this study. Semi-structured online interviews were conducted individually from January to February 2023 in three divisional (Dhaka, Chittagong, and Sylhet) COVID-19 dedicated military hospitals in Bangladesh. The study was reported using the COREQ checklist. Audio-video sessions of discussions were recorded, analyzed, and transcribed verbatim. Dataset analysis was performed using thematic analysis.

Results

Eight themes were developed: (i) Nurses' self-strategies; (ii) colleagues' strategies; (iii) Nurse managers' strategies; (iv) Feelings about nursing ethical values; (v) Employers' strategies; (vi) Government strategies; (vii) Family members' strategies; (viii) Strategies of social people.

Conclusions

The study's findings would inspire healthcare professionals to use various survival strategies when facing critical clinical situations. Additionally, this study encourages nurses to develop survival skills to avoid depression, fear, and anxiety and to learn how to deal with work-related stress situations.

"A Life Slips Through Our Fingers" Experiences of Nurses Working in Pediatric Intensive Care Units About Children's Death: A Qualitative Study

Caring for a dying child can be an experience full of all kinds of negative emotions, pain and stress for the pediatric nurse. In this study, which was carried out in Turkey, we aimed to determine how nurses working in a pediatric intensive care unit remembered and made sense of their experiences regarding children's deaths. In-depth interviews were held with 13 nurses. The data were analyzed using the content analysis method. Three themes were identified. These were (1) Personal effects of death, (2) Difficulties in care, and (3) Coping with death. It was clear that the nurses were traumatised by their exposure to infant deaths. The findings showed that nurses experienced regret, fatigue and posttraumatic stress disorder. In addition, it was determined that nurses should be supported to cope with child deaths, which is a complicated process involving the child and the family, especially emotionally. Moreover, providing institutional support to nurses and referring them to cognitive-behavioral therapies may make it easier for them to cope with the emotional burden they carry, as well as the burnout they experience.

End-stage care for children after heart transplant

Heart transplant is performed annually in over 600 children worldwide to treat life-limiting cardiac disease. Conversations regarding waitlist mortality, post-transplant morbidity and mortality, and goals of care are commonplace pre-transplant. However, there is a void of information and resources for providers and families when end-stage disease recurs in the long-term transplant recipient. The purpose of this review is to discuss the care of the pediatric heart transplant recipient with chronic cardiac dysfunction occurring years after a successful transplant. This includes a need for transplant providers to have education and training related both to palliative care and medical ethics to improve shared decision making with patients and families.