CHILD HEALTH NURSING

Definition of Pediatric Nursing It is the art and science of giving nursing care to children from birth through adolescent with emphasis on the physical growth, mental, emotional and psycho-social development.

Aims of Pediatric Nursing The main aims of pediatric nurse are to: Preventing child’s disease or injury. Assisting children, including those with a permanent disability Achieve and maintain an optimum level of health and development. Treating and rehabilitating children whom have health deviations.

Pediatric nursing or child health nursing  is a specialized nursing practice branch which deals with the health of babies, young children and adolescents. Specialists of this field are known as pediatric nurse. In comparison to other fields of nursing practice pediatric nursing is very wide in scope. In adult nursing there are different specialty fields like. Cardiac Mental health Emergency care nursing

A pediatric nurse has to undergo special training in child health and child behavior after their under graduate studies where they are trained in child health both in theory and clinical practices. Pediatric nursing also focuses on the healthy growth and development of a child not only at a physical level but also at mental level.

In pediatric nursing education and awareness of the family members specially mothers is a very critical and important aspects because child health is a continuous process and it requires that families should be educated on how to take care of child and provide them a healthy growth opportunity.

In neonatal pediatric nursing a nurse has to take care of the most basic requirement of the patient which needs a very hard and in depth training process.

Scope of Pediatric Nursing Practices Nurses have the responsibility in providing nursing interventions either in ambulatory or institutional settings. Ambulatory setting: such as home, schools and or physician’s clinic where children and their parents have heath or counseling needs. Institutional settings are mainly hospitals (general or specialized hospitals) where care is provided to sick children and their parents.

Role of the Pediatric Nurse 1.Family advocacy The pediatric nurse should be aware of the rights of the child (UND):- All children needs:- 1. To be free from discriminations. 2. To develop physically and mentally, morally and spiritually in freedom and dignity. 3. To have a name and nationality 4. To have adequate nutrition, housing, recreation and medical services.

4. To have adequate nutrition, housing, recreation and medical services. 5. To receive love, understanding and maternal security 6. To receive an education and develop his /her abilities. 7. To be first to receive protection and relief in disaster 8. To be protected against all forms of neglect, cruelty and exploitation. 9. To be brought up in a spirit of understanding tolerance, friendship among peoples.

Role of the Pediatric Nurse 2. Health teaching 3) Support /Counseling 4) Therapeutic role 5) Coordination/Collaboration 6) Health care planning 7) Ethical decision making 8) Research

The Nursing Process Establishing an open, interactive and therapeutic nurse-client relationship is essential for delivery of maternity nursing care through application of nursing process as the following:-

. Assessment Stage: Assessing patient health status (physical and emotional health) accurately.  The child and family members must be included in the assessment.  Interviewing parents involves more than just fact gathering; this initial contact establishes the nature of future contacts and begins development of a trusting relationship with the nurse.  Begin the interview with an introduction; explain the nurse’s role and the purpose of the interview to establish a clear nurse to child/parent relationship.  Treat the child/adolescent and parent as partners equal

Nursing Diagnosis Stage: Stage: Identifying wellness, actual and potential individualized child/family needs and problems in order to accomplish mutual goals. The accuracy of the diagnosis is depends on the comprehensiveness of the available data base. Nursing care of infants and children is consistent with the definition of nursing as ―the diagnosis and treatment of human responses to actual or potential health problems‖.

. Planning Stage: After nursing diagnosis has been established, the paediatric nurse collaborates with the patient to establish mutual patient-center goal. Essential steps of planning phase are prioritizing the nursing diagnosis and selecting nursing intervention that will be help the patient to achieve the goals.

. Implementation Stage: This is the stage of put the plan into action (goal directed care) The nurse initiates and completes the intervention designed to help patient to achieve the goals and demonstrate the specified outcome criteria

. Evaluation Stage: This stage involves reassessing child status to determine the progress toward the goals.  To evaluate the progress and the effect of nursing intervention, the nurse should compare the current status, abilities and knowledge with the previous assessment.

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