Understanding the Lived Experiences of Nurses Resuscitating Children in Community Hospital Emergency Departments

Abstract

Emergency department (ED) nurses exposed to pediatric resuscitations are at a high risk of developing posttraumatic stress (Adriaenssens et al., 2012; Lavoie et al., 2016). This may be especially true in community hospital EDs where nurses have less exposure to, knowledge about, and resources for managing these events (Gangadharan et al., 2018; Gilleland et al., 2014; Goldman et al., 2018). Interventions to proactively prevent nurse trauma in these contexts remain uninvestigated. To inform such interventions, this study aimed to understand the largely unknown lived experiences of these nurses. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with four registered nurses who experienced at least one pediatric resuscitation while working in a community hospital ED in Ontario. Data analyzed using Smith et al.’s (2009) interpretive phenomenological analysis revealed three superordinate themes (i.e., “Conceptualizing Pediatric Resuscitations,” “Seeing What I See,” and “Making Sense of What I Saw”) and nine corresponding subthemes. This study provides insight into the infrequent but profound experiences of nurses resuscitating children in community hospital EDs. Participants, who conceptualized these events as unnatural, emotional, and chaotic, were comforted by those who understood their experiences and distressed by those who could not see what they saw. To reconcile what they saw, the nurses reflected and ruminated on the event, ultimately restructuring their experiences of themselves, others, and the world to make room for a new reality where the safety of childhood is not certain. The findings of this study have implications for nursing practice, education, leadership, and research that may enhance nurse coping following these events.