Children continue to experience harm when undergoing clinical procedures despite increased evidence of the need to improve the provision of child-centred care. The international ISupport collaboration aimed to develop standards to outline and explain good procedural practice and the rights of children within the context of a clinical procedure. The rights-based standards for children undergoing tests, treatments, investigations, examinations and interventions were developed using an iterative, multi-phased, multi-method and multi-stakeholder consensus building approach. This consensus approach used a range of online and face to face methods across three phases to ensure ongoing engagement with multiple stakeholders. The views and perspectives of 203 children and young people, 78 parents and 418 multi-disciplinary professionals gathered over a two year period (2020–2022) informed the development of international rights-based standards for the care of children having tests, treatments, examinations and interventions. The standards are the first to reach international multi-stakeholder consensus on definitions of supportive and restraining holds.

Conclusion: This is the first study of its kind which outlines international rights-based procedural care standards from multi-stakeholder perspectives. The standards offer health professionals and educators clear evidence-based tools to support discussions and practice changes to challenge prevailing assumptions about holding or restraining children and instead encourage a focus on the interests and rights of the child.

What is Known:

• Children continue to experience short and long-term harm when undergoing clinical procedures despite increased evidence of the need to improve the provision of child-centred care.

• Professionals report uncertainty and tensions in applying evidence-based practice to children’s procedural care. What is New:

• This is the first study of its kind which has developed international rights-based procedural care standards from multi-stakeholder perspectives.

• The standards are the first to reach international multi-stakeholder consensus on definitions of supportive and restraining holds.

Background and aim

The aim of the present article was to elaborate on a research approach and method called ‘lifeworld hermeneutics’. Significant to lifeworld hermeneutics is that interpretation is the main methodological instrument for explaining and understanding existential research questions and lived experiences. From a caring science perspective, this often refers to research that aims to gain a deeper understanding of existential phenomena and issues, such as existential meaning of health, well-being, homelessness, lostness, suffering and ageing, as well as what it means to experience unhealthiness and illness, the need for care, and caring that responds to such needs.

Design

Theoretical paper.

Result

The article briefly covers ontology and epistemology that clarifies the meaning and importance of a lifeworld hermeneutic attitude. This is followed by suggestions for how to perform a lifeworld hermeneutic study, expressed in relation to methodological principles for the interpretation, validation and structuring of interpretations. Thereafter, follow reflections on how to use theoretical or philosophical support to develop and deepen existential interpretations. The findings of lifeworld hermeneutic research consist of existential interpretations where the researcher, with an open and pliable attitude towards the phenomenon and the aim of the study, clarifies, explains and suggests new ways of understanding participants’ lived experiences; the researcher should maintain such an attitude towards their understanding of the phenomenon as well.

Conclusion

The lifeworld hermeneutical approach and method described in this article makes it possible to further deepen the understanding and knowledge about existential issues that is relevant for caring and caring science. 

To examine whether children experience less fear or pain using a child-centered intervention and if there were differences between the intervention group and the control group regarding heart rate, time required for the procedure, success rate for the cannula insertion, and patient satisfaction. A controlled single-center case study of observational design, with one control and one intervention group. Child self-reported fear or pain levels did not reveal any differences for those receiving the intervention compared with controls. However, according to a behavioral observation measure with the Procedure Behavior Check List, effects of the intervention were lower distress in relation to fear and pain during the cannula insertion. The time it took to perform the cannula insertion also decreased significantly in the intervention group. More children in the intervention group reported that they were satisfied with the needle procedure compared with the children in the control group. The child-centered intervention provides reduced observed distress related to fear and pain in children undergoing a cannula insertion and reduced total time by more than 50%. This study found that child involvement in care strengthen their ability to manage a needle procedure. 

Objective

This study explores children’s expressions of emotional cues and concerns during needle procedures, nurses’ responses and findings in relation to children’s age and sex.

Methods

Twenty-six children aged 6–12 years were video recorded during a preoperative needle procedure. Emotional communication was analyzed using Verona Coding Definitions of Emotional Sequences.

Results

A total of 111 cues or concerns were identified in the observed needle procedures, with a distribution of 77 cues and 34 concerns. A majority of children (85%) expressed emotional cues through non-verbal communication. No differences between child age or sex related to expressed emotion were found. The child elicited the communicated emotion in 98% of sequences. Nurses' responses were coded as not providing space for communication in 75% of sequences.

Conclusion

Children are capable of expressing their emotional distress, primarily non-verbally, during needle procedures. A child showing less overt expressions during a needle procedure does not necessarily experience less fear or pain. The nurses’ communication focused on practical information during the needle procedure, with less attention to the child’s distress.

Practice implications

Nurses need to develop strategies to be aware of emotions the child communicates before, during and after a needle procedure.

In this study, we highlight the importance of methodological creativity when researching existential phenomena in caring science. Our intention is to provide epistemological and methodological support that would encourage researchers to be creative when collecting data. One fruitful way to approach creativity involves basing one’s research on the epistemological and methodological ideas of lifeworld research. We will illustrate the usefulness of lifeworld research via examples from empirical caring science research and show how creativity may contribute to a profound understanding of patients’ experiences. Hopefully, this article will help other researchers be creative without losing epistemological foundations and scientific validity.

This article is devoted to reflections on how to prevent pre-understanding from influencing the research process and jeopardizing the validity of a study. Influences from preunderstanding exemplified from empirical lifeworld-led caring science research. Finally, there is a discussion of preunderstanding as a natural attitude and therefore also an important part of the lifeworld. It is concluded that validity requires a self-critical approach. It is suggested that a descriptive analysis, where the findings are fairly close to the data, involves a less problematic approach than research, which requires special attention to pre-understanding in connection with different levels of interpretation.

Purpose: This study describes the lived experiences of nurse-led consultations in pediatric emergency departments from the perspective of pediatric nurses.

Design and methods: A descriptive qualitative study with a reflective lifeworld research approach was used to explore nurses' experiences of nurse-led consultations. The study was conducted through meaning-oriented individual interviews with ten pediatric nurses.

Results: The results are grouped into four themes: (a) embracing the encounter and being touched by it; (b) having time to be present and committed; (c) having the ability and trusting in one's intuition; and (d) negotiating between families' wishes and the organization's guidelines.

Conclusions: Our study shows that nurse-led consultations conducted in separate nurse-led reception areas promote a positive experience of the consultations from the perspective of pediatric nurses. In a nurse-led consultation, a nurse's confidence in their ability to provide care is connected to time, broad skills and knowledge, and a supportive organization.

Practice implications: As the rising global population increases the demand for healthcare services, pediatric emergency departments must streamline their services to provide patient-safe, high-quality health care. Nurse-led consultations are an effective means of meeting these growing demands. This study contributes to an understanding of pediatric nurses' experiences at both the individual level and a more structured level, namely that families' wishes and an organization's guidelines do not always coincide. 

Anxiety has been identified as one of the most severe and long-lasting symptoms experienced by hospitalized children with cancer. Self-reports are especially important for documenting emotional and abstract concepts, such as anxiety. Children may not always be able to communicate their symptoms due to language difficulties, a lack of developmental language skills, or the severity of their illness. Instruments with sufficient psychometric quality and pictorial support may address this communication challenge. The purpose of this review was to systematically search the published literature and identify validated and reliable self-report instruments available for children aged 5–18 years to use in the assessment of their anxiety to ensure they receive appropriate anxietyrelief intervention in hospital. What validated self-report instruments can children with cancer use to self-report anxiety in the hospital setting? Which of these instruments offer pictorial support? Eight instruments were identified, but most of the instruments lacked pictorial support. The Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and Pediatric Quality of Life (PedsQL™) 3.0 Brain Tumor Module and Cancer Module proved to be useful in hospitalized children with cancer, as they provide pictorial support. It is recommended that faces or symbols be used along with the VAS, as pictures are easily understood by younger children. Future studies could include the adaptation of existing instruments in digital e-health tools. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Background: Children often report both fear and pain in conjunction with clinical care and treatment. Interventions developed in the field have still not been sufficient to prevent and relieve children’s fear and pain. More knowledge, from children’s own perspectives, is needed about how they deal with their experiences.

Aim: To explore child-identified strategies that children use to manage fear and pain during needle-related medical procedures in hospital.

Methods: Interviews with children, age 4–12 years, with experience of hospital care were analysed qualitatively using content analysis.

Results: Children have self-identified strategies for dealing with fear and pain during hospital care and treatment. The strategies vary depending on examination or treatment and on how the child felt at that particular day. Children describe what they can do themselves, how adults can empower them and support from surroundings as strategies that give them a choice and a voice. Children wished to have influence, decide when and how information should be given, scream out loud or squeeze something hard, to deal with fear and pain. The results also show that children tried to be brave, gain control and think positively. Something nice to look at and opportunities to play with others also contributed.

Conclusions: Strategies vary between children and are used differently on different occasions. Healthcare professionals pose a threat to the child’s needs and ability to use their strategies due to lack of knowledge of the child’s chosen strategies.

Introduction This study protocol outlines the evaluation of the pictorial support in person-centred care for children (PicPecc). PicPecc is a digital tool used by children aged 5-17 years to self-report symptoms of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, who undergo high-dose methotrexate treatments. The design of the digital platform follows the principles of universal design using pictorial support to provide accessibility for all children regardless of communication or language challenges and thus facilitating international comparison.

Methods and analysis Both effect and process evaluations will be conducted. A crossover design will be used to measure the effect/outcome, and a mixed-methods design will be used to measure the process/implementation. The primary outcome in the effect evaluation will be self-reported distress. Secondary outcomes will be stress levels monitored via neuropeptides, neurosteroids and peripheral steroids indicated in plasma blood samples; frequency of in-app estimation of high levels of distress by the children; children's use of analgesic medicine and person centeredness evaluated via the questionnaire Visual CARE Measure. For the process evaluation, qualitative interviews will be carried out with children with cancer, their legal guardians and case-related healthcare professionals. These interviews will address experiences with PicPecc in terms of feasibility and frequency of use from the child's perspective and value to the caseworker. Interview transcripts will be analysed using an interpretive description methodology.

Ethics and dissemination Ethical approval was obtained from the Swedish Ethical Review Authority (reference 2019-02392; 2020-02601; 2020-06226). Children, legal guardians, healthcare professionals, policymaking and research stakeholders will be involved in all stages of the research process according to Medical Research Council's guidelines. Research findings will be presented at international cancer and paediatric conferences and published in scientific journals.

Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov; NCT04433650.