Roles of the Paediatric Nursing

Discuss about the Roles of the Paediatric Nursing.

The roles of the Paediatric Nurse and the child health nurse attend to nursing needs of children. They must follow the standards of registered nurses while providing care. The needs of care of children are different from that of adults and a constant engagement with their parents is important. Identifying legal matters during the course of care is important.

The role of a Paediatric Nurse is to provide nursing care to children who may be suffering from medical conditions that require hospitalisation or surgery. Nurses given responsibilities that are critical have a postgraduate degree in paediatric nursing. Children suffering from conditions that need a higher degree of invasive or frequent monitoring may have to be admitted to a paediatric intensive care unit (PICU). Paediatric Nurses are trained in providing holistic and advanced care that such patients require. The age-group of children could range from neonates to early childhood to adolescents (Srouji, et al., 2010).  A Paediatric Nurse works in close association with the parents and acknowledges their understanding of the child's needs since they are the primary care givers. The equipment, treatment and diseases in children are different from adults and need specialised understanding by the health care professionals ("Becoming a Paediatric Nurse", 2010).

Nurses who work with children undergoing a rehabilitation program so as to prepare them to transit from a PICU to their homes are trained to recognise problems and intervene so that the transition becomes less painful for the child. For nurses working in PICU 50% of their time calls for a role in caring for patients with cardiac and respiratory problems (Long, et al., 2013). When preparing a child for surgery, it is common practice to mentally prepare the child and understand the child's psychological needs during a difficult time. Therapeutic play has been known to lower anxiety scores in children (William Li, et al., 2007). Paediatric wards now allow the use of toys and games that can help them remain good spirits.

Several sub-specialised nurses work in areas such as paediatric oncology. Providing emotional support is an important aspect of care provision in such cases. The commonly provided psychological interventions include: providing an explanation of the procedure to the child, addressing the child's concerns about the disease and the treatment and helping to distract the child through active and passive modes. Holding the child's hands provides a great degree of emotional support. Nurses working in such complex roles need extra training in providing  such support. Up to three hours of a work shift could be taken up in providing emotional support to the children in their care (Weinstein & Henrich, 2013).

An important role for the Paediatric Nurse providing care in a critical care setting is to involve the parents of the child because they are play a central role in the child's well being. The nurse is expected to engage the child and the child's parents in an attempt to establish a therapeutic relationship (Registered nurse standards for practice, 2016) The nature of critical care is rather complex so nurses need to take special care so that the parents can remain involved and do not feel left out and are constantly involved and informed about the details of the child's treatment (Butler, et al., 2014). While performing such complex tasks, it is also expected that the PICU nurse participate proactively in training of the graduate nursing students and nurses who are novices (Long, et al., 2013).

Terms such as Child and Family Health Nurses (CFHNs) and Maternal and Child Health Nurses are frequently encountered which points to the role of a child health nurse in providing care that involves the mother and/or the family of the child. This is particularly so when nurses provide guidance related to mothering of an infant to new mothers. The impact of perinatal mental health on rearing an infant is a cause of concern. Nursing interventions can help understand the difficulties and provide support to such mothers in a community setting. Nurses who are specially qualified in child and family health nursing are trained to identify antenatal and postpartum depression and anxiety in mothers by observing their behaviour while dealing with the new-born infant (Rollans, et al., 2013).

Parents across the socioeconomic demographic groups frequently visit primary health centres and this provides an opportunity to the child health care nurse making interventions if the infant or child is obese. The nurse advises the parents about nutrition and exercise. In certain cultures overweight babies are considered healthy and it is usually the child care nurse who dispels the parents' myth and educates them about the importance of maintaining the weight of their child. Advice related to the importance and adherence to vaccination and immunisation to the vaccination program is also the responsibility of a child health nurse. The education to young mothers about the importance of breast feeding is given by nurses dealing with children's health (Denney-Wilson, et al., 2015).

Providing support to early mothers or teenage mothers is an important part of care giving. The diverse social and ethnic backgrounds in a multicultural society requires child health nurses to be aware of their beliefs and biases  (Borrow, et al., 2011).

It is therefore evident that paediatric and child health nurses both work with children as patient. But while a Paediatric Nurse is involved in providing critical care to the more seriously ill children in hospitals, a child health nurse is more involved with providing everyday health care to children and provides advice to young mothers on mothering and how to care for infants. Her role in counselling parents about the need to vaccinate the children, paying home visits and in the primary health care centres helps maintain the health of children in the society. The Paediatric Nurse provides support to parents dealing with chronic illnesses of their children who need counselling and guidance in dealing with the situation.

It is the duty of every trained nurse to help in identifying children who are subject to physical or emotional abuse, neglect, sexual abuse and other kinds of harm, irrespective of the specialisation through training or education ("Safeguarding Children and Young People", 2014). It is mandatory for nurses to report cases of abuse according to Australian legislation and the rules given in occupational policy documents have to be followed. Nurses are generally alert when recognizing and reporting physical and sexual abuse in children, but more training may be required for them to identify each case of neglect and emotional abuse (Fraser, et al., 2010). Risk factors such as, parental mental health also pose a danger of underreporting if the problem is not recognised by nursing staff. (Schols, et al., 2013).

The intervention by a nurse can help the child and parents to maintain a healthy life. When a child has issues related to mental health, such conditions may be quickly identified by a trained nurse whose frequency of seeing the child is higher than a doctor.  

The job of a registered nurse as a Paediatric Nurse and a child health nurse is similar because in both roles a nurse is dealing with children. A Paediatric Nurse performs the complex role of providing hospital care to children suffering from chronic diseases, undergoing a surgery or a condition requiring constant monitoring. A child health nurse provides professional help to the mothers of infants. They need to engage with parents through the process of care giving. Providing psychological support to the ill child, being ethnically and culturally sensitive, provision of care to teenage mothers, identifying abuse and reporting, counselling mothers about aspects of child rearing are roles that are performed by nurses.

References

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