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

ABSTRACT

Background: 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. Aims: To explore the palliative care strategies of Iranian nurses for children dying from cancer. Methods: 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. Results: 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”. Conclusion: Perceived compassion was the main strategy used by Iranian nurses to provide palliative care to children dying from cancer.