Journal of pediatric nursing
-
Surgical encounters for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are stressful to patients, families and health care providers. It is recognized that parents best anticipate needs of children with ASD. Including a family in the plan of care for the child is imperative. In response to the need for targeted, tailored care, an inter-professional surgical services team convened to determine best practices for addressing a behavioral and developmental plan for children with ASD in the surgical services arena. ⋯ Actively reducing the anxiety a child experiences in a current encounter is paramount to the success of future visits. The coping plan is a formalized summary aimed at helping healthcare providers give individualized care, thereby decreasing the anxiety of both the parent and child. The individualized plan outlines the needs of the patient and allows for the medical team to make adaptations to lessen the stressors a health care visit can present. Plans are shared with the medical team, documented, and updated in the electronic medical record for future encounters. Information captured includes: previous healthcare experiences, sensory sensitivities, communication methods, stressors and coping suggestions. Utilizing best practice, patients are able to receive individualized care to foster positive coping experiences within healthcare.
-
While there is growing attention to making health care safer, there has been less emphasis on helping health care workers to cope with stressful patient related events (these workers are commonly referred to as second victims). We used the RISE (Resilience In Stressful Events) peer support program at the Johns Hopkins Hospital as a case study for evaluating effectiveness, and identifying barriers to addressing the needs of second victims. ⋯ The findings suggest an important role of organizational culture in second victim support program implementation and evaluation.
-
Pediatric early warning score (PEWS) systems are used to monitor pediatric patients' vital signs and facilitate the treatment of patients at risk of deteriorating. The aim of this study was to gain knowledge about nurses' experiences with PEWS and to highlight factors facilitating and impeding the use of PEWS tools in clinical practice. ⋯ Our findings suggest that attention should be given to nurses' perceptions of how both clinical judgment and PEWS should be seen as essential in providing nurses with information about the patients' conditions. If not, the risk of failing to recognize patients' deteriorating conditions will remain as this can have an impeding influence on nurses' use of PEWS. From the nurses' perspective, medical doctors seemed unaware of their role in using PEWS.
-
Anxiety is common among pediatric surgical patients and their parents. Numerous studies have examined interventions to reduce pediatric patients' anxiety; however, less is known about reducing parental anxiety. In other populations, producing art has been shown to significantly reduce anxiety.
-
In 2014, the Youth Acute Pain Functional Ability Questionnaire (YAPFAQ) was developed to investigate patient's self-rated functional ability during times of acute pain in the inpatient clinical setting. Although it has great potential, the application of this tool has not been made a standard of care. The purpose of this multiple methods study was to determine if, through an educational intervention, hospital staff could consistently document the YAPFAQ in children with sickle cell disease (SCD) during a vaso-occlusive episode. ⋯ A seamless integration between nursing education and translation through EHR is recommended as technology continues to integrate into nursing practice.