Subject(s)
Bereavement , Caregivers , Nursing Services/ethics , Palliative Care , Humans , Nurse-Patient Relations , Palliative Care/ethicsABSTRACT
PURPOSE: To examine the relationships among family functioning, hope, and quality of life in children with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (JRA). STUDY DESIGN AND METHOD: Sixty-eight children (8 to 12 years of age) with a diagnosis of JRA and one of their parents/guardians participated in this descriptive correlational study. Parents completed the Feetham Family Functioning Survey (FFFS), the Parent Report for Children Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL), and the Parent Report for Children PedsQL Rheumatology Module. The children completed the Children's Hope Scale (CHS), the Child Report for PedsQL, and the Child Report PedsQL Rheumatology Module. Data were analyzed using chi-square, t-tests, and correlation analyses. RESULTS: Family functioning and children's hope showed a negative correlation, indicating that a child's hope was lower when the parent reported greater dissatisfaction with family functioning. Hope was not related to parent or child ratings of the child's quality of life. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: In caring for children with JRA, nurses can assess the family's satisfaction with relationships to the broader community, subsystems, and individual members and seek ways to promote healthy family functioning. Nurses also can assess the level of hope in children with JRA and facilitate the development of hopefulness by helping children establish goals and develop strategies to meet them.
Subject(s)
Arthritis, Juvenile/psychology , Family Relations , Mental Health/statistics & numerical data , Quality of Life , Child , Female , Humans , Male , Marriage/statistics & numerical data , Parents/psychology , Patient Satisfaction/statistics & numerical dataABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Human dignity is an essential value of professional nursing education as well as a component of the American Nurses Association Code of Ethics. Nurses are exhorted to treat patients with dignity, and older adults want to be treated with dignity and die with dignity. Although dignity, particularly the dignity of older adults, is often discussed in the health care literature, its meaning is not always clear. AIM: The aim of this paper is to describe a concept analysis to develop a definition of dignity in older adults. METHODS: Data were collected using a literature review and five focus groups composed of older adults. The literature provided data about professionals' ideas of dignity and the focus groups provided qualitative data about the nature of dignity in older people. The literature review and focus groups were carried out concurrently, followed by synthesis of the findings. FINDINGS: Dignity is an inherent characteristic of being human, it can be subjectively felt as an attribute of the self, and is made manifest through behaviour that demonstrates respect for self and others. Dignity must be learned, and an individual's dignity is affected by the treatment received from others. CONCLUSIONS: A behavioural definition of dignity was constructed and this could provide the theoretical basis for nurses to develop interventions that foster dignity for older people.
