Forces That Have Driven Mid-Career Nurses to Continue Working in Children's Wards

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the driving forces behind mid-career nurses who have been working in children's wards. A semi-structured interview was conducted with seven mid-career nurses who had already been working either in a children's ward of one of two advanced treatment hos-pitals in the suburbs of Tokyo or in a pediatric specialist hospital and had the willingness to work con-tinuously. Modified grounded theory approach was used for analysis.

As a result, through 34 concepts and 11 subcategories, the driving forces behind mid-career nurses who have been working in children's wards were generated as the following three categories; 1) the existence of children who are living toward the future with their illnesses, 2) the rewarding involvement with "children", "family", and "the interactions between children and family", and 3) the actual feeling of working in the self-created place by looking at both the reality and possibilities. Furthermore, we found that these three categories were largely related to; 1) the positive emotions aroused by witnessing the existence of children who are "co-living with illness" and their growth, 2) the rewarding experience gained when tackling and overcoming the core, yet challenging part of pediatric nursing practice, and 3) the feelings of being approved by others that are gained by stepping outside the framework of child care to have a broad perspective and by controlling themselves in the organization. It is consid-ered that these driving forces do not exist independently but complement each other in a continuous and fluid manner, such as a propeller with three rotating wings.