Striving to reduce suffering: A Phenomenological Study of nurses experience in caring for children with cancer in Ghana

Abstract

Aim To provide insights into nurses lived experiences in caring for children with cancer. Background Little is known about the paediatric oncology nurses shared practices of caring for children with cancer in Ghana. Design A hermeneutic phenomenological qualitative study. Methods A semi‐structured interview with 14 purposely sampled Ghanaian paediatric oncology nurses. Findings were analysed using Diekelman, Allen and Tanner's approach. Results The theme "Striving to reduce suffering" and three relational subthemes: "knowing children's needs," “Rendering a hopeful fight” and “Ensuring continuity and coordination of care” emerged. Increased awareness of this phenomenon for the nurses who care for these children is vital to ensure quality and holistic care that is meaningful and satisfying by nurses for children with cancer. Paediatric oncology nurses can use the result of the study to evaluate their caring practice and as an avenue to develop better caring practice.

Impact of Caring for Pediatric Oncology Patients on Health Professionals’ Life: A Qualitative Study

“…[29][30][31] Moreover, identifying these negative as well as positive experiences might provide a broader understanding of the person-centered concept of care as well as provide a basis for integrated health services that pay special attention to the specific needs and preferences of such individuals provide a basis for the formulation of care theories to strengthen patient care. 32 In this context, it was observed that this study's findings might contribute to the information gap in the literature by identifying these negative as well as positive experiences to strengthen and formulate various patient care approaches.…”

“…In accordance with the existing literature, it was evident that the continuous apprehensive work environment faced by health care professionals' majorly affected their empathy skills by frequent alteration of innate thoughts toward fear of mortality resulting in emotional deprivation. 28,32 Contrary to the past literature, it was expressed that all healthcare workers were in such an uncertain cognitive state after some time that they were displaying exagger-ated reactions toward getting cancer, while some feared having a child or relatives afflicted with cancer. Our study results are extremely important for understanding the negative experiences of health professionals during caring for pediatric oncology patients and is in accordance with other previous studies' observations that health care professionals are particularly vulnerable to negative mental health effects such as feeling inadequate, low work efficiency and motivation as well as increased levels of anxiety while working with such children and hence health professionals should be amply supported by various individual and group psychological interventions to make them feel productive and worthwhile as well as to improve their social and motivational attitudes.…”