When a Child Dies: How Pediatric Nurses Cope

Background: Pediatric nurses are frequently affected by children’s deaths and experience intense emotional reactions. Nurses who provide end-of-life care to children not only have to deal with their own sense of loss, but also that of bereaved families.

Objective: To assess emotional reactions, coping strategies and perceived needs of nurses caring for dying children in pediatric hospitals.

Methods: A total of 170 pediatric nurses participated in this cross-sectional study; data were collected via a self-reported questionnaire.

Results: Pediatric nurses were greatly affected by children’s death, expressing mainly feelings of sadness (44%), compassion (22%), guilt (22%) and anger (22%). The most common way of nurses dealing with their emotions was thinking about children’s death at their homes (43%), while 34% either avoided talking to colleagues or were isolated. Few nurses reported an outburst of crying. The largest percentage (62.8%) of our study participants believed that they should continue to provide care and support to the child’s family during mourning period, while 70.6% believed that nurses providing care to dying patients should definitely participate in psychological support groups.

Conclusion: Caring for dying children lends to difficulty in controlling feelings and emotions due to the amount of grief and loss in this nursing care setting. Nurses have the most contact with patients and families and therefore need knowledge and practical expertise in order to provide appropriate palliative care to the dying children and their families.