Parents' Experience of Physical Contact with Their Dying Children
Date Issued
2011
Date
2011
Author(s)
Tseng, Yu-Hsiu
Abstract
Background In Taiwan, there are approximately 3,000 parents who experience the grief of their children’s death annually. The second leading cause of death in children is cancer. When time to say goodbye, many parents decide to send their children to the hospital. Therefore, it is important to help the terminally ill children to get good death.
Purpose (1) To understand the experience of parent-child physical contact in the terminal phase. (2) To explore the situations that promote or inhibit the parent-child physical contact in the terminal phase. (3) To realize how the experience of parent-child physical contact in the terminal phase affected the grief of parents.
Methods This study was qualitative approach and cross-sectional design. The subjects were 15 mothers of cancer children who had died. Data were collected by open-ended interview, participant observation and chart review.
Results 80% of the mothers said that they had the experience of parent-child physical contact in the terminal phase. If children’s consciousness were clear, they hugged and touched. Otherwise, if children’s consciousness was unclear, the forms of physical contact were consisted of passive range of motion(PROM) and simple massage with or without lotion. By the way, if the cancer children were treated in intensive care unit, their mothers tended to avoid touching their children in order to protect their children. But they felt regret after their children died. When it came to body care, 53% of the mothers participated in it. They thought that they had to protect their dying children from the fear of death by talking to them. There were some situations that made them have more probability to join in body care: (1) To have preparation for the death of their children. (2) The dying children were treated in general ward by supportive care. (3) There were less intrusive lines on children’s body. (4) The dying children were female. (5) The dying children were older. (6) The longer period of illness. Moreover, there were some reasons for mothers who didn’t participated in body care: (1) They thought it was not appropriate for parent to touch their dying children. (2) They went back to the hospital too late. (3) They were too shock for hearing that their children were dying.
Conclusions To reduce the regret of patents who were unable to perform physical contact with their dying children, there are four directions for medical care team to do: (1) To discuss with parents about terminal care goals and treatments earlier. (2) To well prepare parents to the anticipated death of their children. (3) To reduce the ratio of the terminally ill children died in the intensive care unit. (4) To encourage parent-child physical contact whether there were many equipments and intrusive lines on children’s body.
Subjects
dying children
physical contact
experience
SDGs
Type
thesis
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