The process of pediatric nurses to achieve practice that advocates for children’s rights

Abstract

  This inductive qualitative study aimed to clarify the processes necessary for pediatric nurses to achieve practice that advocates children’s rights. The participants were 14 nurses, with over 5 years of pediatric nursing experience, from 3 facilities at university hospitals located in the Kanto region in Japan. Findings revealed that the core category in this process is “being able to consider children centrally.” This comprised of the following 4 grades, in the following order: ‘One can act as instructed, but cannot consider things independently,’ ‘One obeys the tacit knowledge,’ ‘One can consider children centrally and can move forward,’ and ‘One carries out practice involving everyone, which takes into consideration the standpoint of the children.’

  Further, three abilities were found to affect the intensity of this developed process : ‘confirmation of children’s power,’ ‘contrivance to convey children’s power,’ and ‘attractive emotion to children.’ This process can help to accelerate pediatric nurses reach practices that advocate children’s rights in clinical settings involving children, basic nursing education, on-the-job training, and research in college.