A new report published in 2015 by the global charity “Save the Children” aims to improve neonatal survival across the world. Entitled “Improving Newborn Survival: Saving the Lives of 3 Million” the...

Family caregivers play a critical role in caring for children living with HIV, however, there is little knowledge about their experiences. The aim of this study was to illuminate the family caregivers’ lived experiences of caring for a child when he or she has been diagnosed with HIV and enrolled to antiretroviral treatment. Qualitative interviews with 21 family caregivers of 21 children diagnosed with HIV were analyzed using an inductive design with a hermeneutic phenomenological approach. The caregivers' experience were articulated in 5 subthemes under the main theme of “Surviving overwhelming challenges”: “Committed care-giving,” “Breaking the family life,” “Caring burdens,” “Confronting conflicts,” and “Living with worry.” Despite the difficult situation the family caregivers experienced with extensive worry, caring burdens, and disrupted family and social networks, they were committed caregivers. They were empowered by their belief in God but also by their strong belief in the child’s treatment and support from healthcare workers. The healthcare system needs to consider possible ways to support the family caregivers during child’s HIV diagnosis and treatment initiation as part of a continuum of care.

Most families can access a range of health information and advice. Information and advice sources often include nurses, the Internet, social media, books, as well as family and friends. While the immediate aim may be to find information, it can also be to assist with parenting skills, solve parenting problems or as part of decision-making processes about their child’s health. These processes are strongly influenced by the parent’s level of health literacy. Health literacy describes a person’s capacity to obtain and utilize health related information. Although there are numerous health literacy definitions all have clearly defined steps. These steps are: obtaining relevant information; then understanding this information; and finally being able to use the information to achieve the expected outcome. Previous research has linked low levels of parental health literacy with poorer child health outcomes. Given this link, increasing health literacy levels would be advantageous for both families and health services. Nurses working with families are in a position to support the family to increase their health literacy through the use of a variety of strategies. This article outlines how health literacy can influence the way parents seek help when they are concerned about child health issues, the relevance of parental health literacy for nurses and suggests some tools that could be used to support the increase of health literacy.

Low levels of literacy in early childhood can have lasting effects on children’s educational and intellectual development. Many countries have implemented newborn literacy programs designed to teach parents pre-literacy promoting activities to share with their children. We conducted 2 quasi-experimental studies using 1) a pre-test/post-test design and 2) a non-equivalent control group design to examine the effect of newborn literacy programs on parents’ self-reported literacy intentions/behaviors, values toward literacy, and parent-child interactions. Parents were recruited from 3 provinces, 2 with newborn literacy programs (intervention) and 1 without (control). Parents in the intervention group completed prenatal and postnatal (after participation in program) questionnaires. Parents in the control group completed 1 questionnaire. Questionnaires were designed to capture parents’ literacy intentions (prenatal), behaviors (postnatal), values, and parent-child interactions (postnatal). A total of 98 parents were included in study one and 174 were included in study two. Parents’ self-reported prenatal intentions and values were higher than their postnatal behaviors and values. Parents in the intervention group exhibited higher literacy behaviors and values and greater enjoyment reading to their children than parents in the control group, though they also reported reading to their children less frequently. Parents in the intervention group had significantly higher Positive Interactive scores than controls. Overall, we found participation in newborn literacy programs positively impacted parenting behaviors and attitudes. Lower postnatal within-group scores (intentions and values versus behaviors and values) may have been the result of participants’ high expectations. Given our findings, we recommend that these programs continue.

The textbook Children and Young People’s Nursing at a Glance is written for undergraduate health care students, newly qualified practitioners, and practitioners caring for children who may not have...

The National Health Service Institute for Innovation and Improvement was established to help the NHS to improve healthcare by rapidly developing and disseminating knowledge and evidence about new ways of working. One example is the Emergency and Urgent Care Pathway for Children and Young People which focused on providing high quality and safe healthcare for children and young people requiring urgent or emergency treatment for the most common illnesses and injuries. Monkey’s Guide to Healthy Living and NHS Services was developed to increase awareness of acute health services in primary school-aged children. This free resource was posted to every primary school in England. A process and impact evaluation was undertaken to explore how the resource was being utilized during 2013–2014. A small number of in-depth case studies were developed involving classroom-based observations and teacher interviews along with a much larger online survey which was emailed to all primary schools in England. On the whole, the resource was viewed as useful, engaging, and informative; with children, teachers, and other professionals particularly valuing the monkey puppet, video clips, and teacher resources. The National Evaluation highlighted that most respondents integrated the materials into the curriculum, used them as a one-off lesson, or developed their own innovative and strategic approaches to make the best use of the resources; almost two-thirds of schools who responded to the survey felt the resources led to pupils knowing about the available NHS services and healthy lifestyles; over half felt pupils were now more informed about the most appropriate services to use.

As all human beings are consumers of health care provision across the life span and in receipt of care delivered by accountable health care professionals, all should have the right to be involved in shaping the future of their own health care. Rights-based participation, when applied successfully, has the potential to inform and influence the delivery of child health care, the child’s experience of health care, plus children’s nursing education (Coyne & Gallagher, 2011). The “right” of every child and young person to participate in research that relates to their own health care is also sustained by the author’s lead position as a Senior Lecturer in Higher Education for pre-registration children’s nursing in Northern Ireland and the appreciation of their voice when practicing as a registered children’s nurse and ward sister. The report provides an insight into seminal work on human and child rights; the historical context of children in Western society, and the evolution of children’s nursing amid the child’s right to participate in shaping their own health care.

Key policies at national and international levels have called for the increased involvement of children in their healthcare. This reflects a growing recognition of the sociology of childhood and of children as social agents. However, it seems that the involvement agenda has met with mixed results, with children often being left marginalized as a result of professional, parental, and other factors. A need for further research into children and health professional’s attitude towards child involvement has been identified by research in this area. In this article we review the current literature on children’s involvement in care, noting the differences between professional views and those of children themselves. To do this we used a literature review, incorporating electronic database searching and snowballing techniques. We found that children and health professionals are in general agreement that children should be involved in their healthcare; however there is some disagreement over the extent of involvement. Many children experienced exclusion due to many factors including parental role, in that there may be a belief among adults that children cannot act in their own best interest. The involvement of children in their healthcare may be considered transitory and dependent upon competing factors. It may be helpful to view child involvement in healthcare in the context of children’s status in their society. Health professionals should aim to empower children with appropriate information about their healthcare.