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Building Trust to Work With: a Grounded Theory Study of Paediatric Acute Care Nurses Work

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Thesis(649.28 KB)

Date

2004

Authors

Supervisor

Wilson, Jan

Item type

Thesis

Degree name

Master of Health Science

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Auckland University of Technology

Abstract

Grounded theory methodology has guided the grounded theory methods used to explore the acute care paediatric nurses' perspective of what they do when a child has had a severe accident. The research was initiated from the experience of nursing children in the context of a rehabilitation centre and wondering how acute care nurses promoted a child's recovery after a severe unintentional injury. Many avenues were used to search international and New Zealand literature but the scarcity of literature related to what acute care paediatric nurses do was evident. Therefore this research has the potential of informing the speciality practice of acute care pediatric nursing. Nursing children in the acute care ward after a severe accident is complex. It encompasses nursing the family when they are experiencing a crisis. It is critical that the acute care nurse monitors and ensures the child's physiological needs are met, and the nurse "works with" the child to maintain and advance medical stability. Nursing interactions are an important part of "working with", communication is the essence of nursing. This research has focussed on the nurses' social processes whilst caring for the physical needs of the child and interacting with the family and multidisciplinary team when appropriate. An effective working-relationship with a nurse and family is founded on trust. Trust is an accepted part of our day-to-day lives and how to develop a trusting working-relationship with the child and family has not been explored prior to this research. Grounded theory methods supported the process of exploring the social processes of "building trust" whilst "working with" families in a vulnerable position. Nurses rely on rapport to be invited into a family's space to "work with" and support the re-establishment of the parenting role. The "stepping in and out" of an effective working-relationship with a family is reliant on trust. Nurses build trust by spending time to "be with", using chat to get to know each other, involving and supporting the family to parent a "different" child and reassuring and giving realistic hope to help the child and parents cope with their changed future. A substantive theory of the concept of "building trust to work with" has been developed using grounded theory methods. The theory has been conceptualized using the perspective of seven registered nurses working in paediatric acute care wards that admit children who have had a severe traumatic accident.

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Keywords

Pediatric nursing, Pediatric intensive care, Trust, Acute Disease - nursing, Nursing

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Permanent link

https://hdl.handle.net/10292/145

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Masters Theses