Truth-telling to the seriously ill child – Nurses’ experiences, attitudes, and beliefs

Journal article


El Ali, Mandy, Licqurish, Sharon, O'Neill, Jenny and Gillam, Lynn. (2024). Truth-telling to the seriously ill child – Nurses’ experiences, attitudes, and beliefs. Nursing Ethics. 31(5), pp. 930-950. https://doi.org/10.1177/09697330231215952
AuthorsEl Ali, Mandy, Licqurish, Sharon, O'Neill, Jenny and Gillam, Lynn
Abstract

Background: Nurses play an integral role in the care of children hospitalised with a serious illness. Although information about diagnostics, treatments, and prognosis are generally conveyed to parents and caregivers of seriously ill children by physicians, nurses spend a significant amount of time at the child’s bedside and have an acknowledged role in helping patients and families understand the information that they have been given by a doctor. Hence, the ethical role of the nurse in truth disclosure to children is worth exploring.

Methods: A systematic academic database and grey literature search strategy was conducted using CINAHL, Medline Psych Info, and Google Scholar. Keywords used included truth, children, nurse, disclosure, serious illness, and communication. A total of 17 publications of varying types were included in the final data set.

Ethical Considerations: As this was a review of the literature, there were no direct human participants. Empirical studies included in the review had received ethics approval.

Results: Of the 17 articles included in the review, only one directly reported on the experiences of nurses asked to withhold the truth from patients. Empirical studies were limited to HIV-positive children and children diagnosed with cancer and the dying child.

Conclusion: A paucity of literature exploring the experiences, attitudes, and beliefs of nurses with regard to truth-telling to seriously ill children is evident. Little consideration has been given to the role nurses play in communicating medical information to children in a hospital setting. The 17 articles included in the review focused on cancer, and HIV, diagnosis, and end-of-life care. Further research should be undertaken to explore the experiences and attitudes of nurses to clinical information sharing to children hospitalised with a wide range of serious illnesses and in diverse clinical scenarios.

KeywordsEthical challenges; nurse; disclosure; lying; truth-telling; topic areas; ethics and children in care; adolescent; literature review; empirical approaches; ethics of care/care ethics; theory/philosophical perspectives; clinical ethics
Year01 Jan 2024
JournalNursing Ethics
Journal citation31 (5), pp. 930-950
PublisherSage Publications Ltd. (UK)
ISSN0969-7330
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1177/09697330231215952
PubMed ID38128903
Web address (URL)https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09697330231215952
Open accessOpen access
Research or scholarlyResearch
Page range930-950
Publisher's version
License
File Access Level
Open
Output statusPublished
Publication dates
Online21 Dec 2023
Publication process dates
Deposited22 Oct 2024
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© The Author(s) 2023

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
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Place of publicationUnited Kingdom
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