Novice nurses’ experiences providing palliative care for children and their families

The role of registered nurses is complex and involves nursing care from the beginning to the end-of-life. Currently, Canadian undergraduate nursing programs rarely focus on specialty training but rather on entry-to-practice competencies. The purpose of this project was to explore the experiences of novice nurses providing palliative care for children and their families.The findings from interviews with eight novice nurses revealed that the caring they provided was influenced by who the nurses were, the knowledge they possessed, the context of their workplaces and societal beliefs about children dying, and the families to whom care was given. The relational practice abilities of the nurses proved to be an overarching theme as the ability to connect with a child and family was foundational. Novice nurses offer important perspectives about pediatric end-of-life care and provide insight into areas of strength and continual improvement for the ultimate benefit of children and their families.