Nurses’ perceptions about nursing care provided to the family and child with cancer

Abstract

Using Symbolic Interactionism as a theoreticalframework the authors intended to explore the dimensions of nurses’ experiences in taking care of children with cancer and their families. To the nurses, childhood cancer is an event that brings many changes to the life of the child and his/her family. After the diagnosis, the treatinent is soon started and it has usually a long course and brings implications that the child and family need to face, being the mother the child’s main source of support. To the nurses, the families have different behaviors at the beginning and during the treatment and so are the needs. Care is seen as “too big a task and too complicated" and needs to be delivered by a team of health professionals, as in some áreas the nurse does notfeel that care is within of her competence. An extension of "support” is seen within in the nursing care when the nurse expects to alleviate the pain to and give physical and psychological comfort talking to the child, caressing, playing, consolating, telling the truth and respecting the child’s wishes. Taking care of the family means to be available when needed, talk and listen to them, give encouragement; be committed to them and not abandoning them when nothing else can be done. The ways of caring identified in this study corroborate the existence of a universal way of caring identified by Leininger and Watson in another cultures. More research is necessary to describe behaviors, values and practices related to care provision in nursing so this knowledge can be incorporated to the nurse.