Health Promotion in Pediatric Nursing Practice
Every day, hundreds of thousands of babies are born into this world. With our population growing faster than ever, there is a clear need for pediatric nurses to care for these children. Pediatric nurses can promote a healthy lifestyle to children at various stages of their lives by utilizing ample resources to maintain well-being and allow patients to retain the healthy habits they have been taught in order to thrive from birth to adulthood. This paper will look at how pediatric nursing is intertwined with health promotion, as nurses play an important role in educating their patients about living an active lifestyle and taking preventative measures against unhealthy behaviors.
Pediatric nurses work alongside parents to provide expert health care to children from birth to late adolescence. Pediatric nurses provide a wide range of services with specialized skills in a variety of work settings to effectively care for children at all stages of development. Pediatric nursing specialties include neonatal pediatric nursing, neonatal intensive care unit nursing, and labor and delivery nursing. Pediatric nurses work in a variety of settings, including children’s hospitals, community hospitals, and large medical centers. Pediatric nurses are commonly responsible for tasks such as identifying changes in a child’s signs and symptoms, advocating for children, differentiating between normal and abnormal findings, analyzing situations to detect changes in status, determining a child’s pain management needs, and administering medication (Graduate Nursing EDU, n.d.). The Canadian Association of Paediatric Nurses (2017) identifies five national pediatric nursing standards that serve as a framework for pediatric nursing to ensure consistency and high-quality nursing care is provided to all children. These standards include: supporting and partnering with the child and family, advocating for equitable access and the rights of children and families, providing appropriate care, creating a child and family friendly environment, and facilitating successful transitions within the plan of care and between health care professionals and institutions (Canadian Association of Paediatric Nurses [CAPN], 2017). The Canadian Nursing Association (CNA) recognizes pediatric nursing, but the specialty only emerged in the mid-1800s with the opening of the first children’s hospital, making it a relatively new medical specialty. In the 1800s, children were cared for by relatives and frequently died due to sickness or fatal diseases, according to Broadribbs Introductory Pediatric Nursing (Hatfield, 2006). In the 1980s, researchers Marshall Klaus and John Kennell discovered that separating babies from their mothers at birth had a negative impact on family relationships (Hatfield, 2006 p.4). Hospitals then started changing regulations and gradually implementing more policies that reflected the needs of children and families (Hatfield, 2006 p.4). There are difficulties in pediatric nursing because nurses must be able to cope with the sadness associated with sick children. Pediatric nurses must be able to reduce the parents’ anxieties when dealing with stressed parents whose children are in a vulnerable state. Although pediatric nurses face challenges, there are also rewards associated with the profession. Job satisfaction among neonatal nurses, in particular, is associated with compensation such as improved patient health status and advocacy such as assisting a new nurse with a task they have not completed independently (Archibald, 2006). Positive patient outcomes, which are strongly influenced by health promotion, are an important aspect of job satisfaction in pediatric nursing.