Palliative care strategies of Iranian nurses for children dying from cancer: a qualitative study.

Abstract

Children with cancer, who are at the end-of-life and facing death, need access to palliative care services, and nurses play an important role in providing these services. To explore the palliative care strategies of Iranian nurses for children dying from cancer. This was a qualitative study with conventional content analysis. Participants were 8 nurses, 1 social worker, 1 psychologist, 2 children, and 4 mothers from the Paediatric Oncology Unit in Semnan, Islamic Republic of Iran, who had experience in palliative care for children with cancer. Data were collected from individuals using in-depth, unstructured and semi-structured interviews and analysed using the Graneheim and Lundman approach. Data rigour increased with credibility, dependability, transferability, and confirmability criteria. Data analysis led to the emergence of the concept of "perceived compassion". This theme was derived from the 2 main categories of "feeling the shadow of death on the child" and "comforting accompaniment". Feeling the shadow of death on the child included the subcategories of "pre-death arrangements" and "an opportunity to continue interactions". Comforting accompaniment was derived from 3 subcategories: "preparing to announce the child's death", "extra-role sympathy" and " post-death interactions". Perceived compassion was the main strategy used by Iranian nurses to provide palliative care to children dying from cancer.