Sudden death in paediatrics as a traumatic experience for critical care nurses

Abstract

This study emphasizes the need for promoting better conditions for professional practice, namely, with regard to emotional support, as well as training programmes for skills development in the area of management of traumatic situations and of communication with clients.

Drowning in the desert: family denial of brain death

“…The sudden death of an infant or child is one of the most difficult, traumatic, and devastatingly painful experiences a family member, especially a parent, can face during their lifetime [10]. Because of the intracranial nature of this injury, being drowning and thus cerebral anoxia, it is often difficult for parents to grasp the reality of this situation, as brain-dead patients usually look as if they are just sleeping, and even though the patient is considered legally dead in some countries, it is often not perceived as such by families [11].…”

What's in this Issue

“…While underscoring the importance of basing clinical decisions on research evidence, the meticulous analytic procedures presented in this paper should serve as a benchmark for researchers and clinicians wanting to identify the most appropriate assessment scales on the basis of published studies. Lima et al (2018) address an identified gap in the literature by investigating the impact of the sudden death of children and adolescents, as perceived by nurses working in emergency and intensive care services in Portugal. Of concern is the potential for emotional, behavioural or cognitive reactions, often expressed as secondary traumatic stress (STS) (Bloomer et al, 2015).…”

The potential contribution of mixed‐method research to critical care nursing

“…For example, Lima et al . () recently examined critical care nurses' experience of paediatric death using MMR, which was very illuminating in terms of enriching the findings and providing explanations for the trauma that nurses experienced. Although the researchers used a valid quantitative instrument to identify this trauma, it did not have the sensitivity to pick up the nuances explained in the interviews.…”

“…Two central themes, ‘emotional impact’ and ‘circumstances that affected the emotional impact’, indicated that nurses were deeply affected by the experience. ‘I took it really bad’, ‘I ruminate over it’, ‘...a horrific weekend’ are words that demonstrate the deep, lasting, emotional effect of a child's death on nurses, who in fact felt quite unsupported (Lima et al, :p. 44). Thus, MMR permitted a more in‐depth understanding of this phenomenon that could better inform local practice development and support.…”