Nurses' experiences of what constitutes the encounter with children visiting a sick parent at an adult ICU.

BACKGROUND: Despite a cultural change in visitation policies for children (0-17 years) at the intensive care unit (ICU) to a more open approach, children are still restricted from visiting for various reasons. To overcome these obstacles, it is vital to determine what is needed while encountering a child.

AIM: To elucidate nurses' experiences of what constitutes the encounter with children visiting a sick parent at an adult ICU.

METHOD: An explorative inductive qualitative design was used, entailing focus group interviews with 23 nurses working at a general ICU. The interviews were analysed according to inductive content analysis.

RESULTS: The findings show components that constitute the encounter with children as relatives at the ICU, as experienced by ICU nurses: nurses need to be engaged and motivated; parents need to be motivated; the child needs individual guidance; and a structured follow-up is needed. This reflects a child-focused encounter.

CONCLUSIONS: Nurses need to adopt a holistic view, learn to see and care for the child individually, and be able to engage parents in supporting their children. To accomplish this the nurses need engagement and motivation, and must have knowledge about what constitutes a caring encounter, in order to achieve a caring child-focused encounter.