Nurses’ perspectives on the suffering of preterm infants

The concept of suffering is discussed among those who are cognitively aware and verbally capable to express their suffering. Due to immaturity, preterm infants’ abilities to express suffering are limited. Relieving suffering is an ethical and juridical demand of good nursing care. The purpose of thi...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Korhonen, Anne (Author) ; Haho, Annu (Author) ; Pölkki, Tarja (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Sage 2013
In: Nursing ethics
Year: 2013, Volume: 20, Issue: 7, Pages: 798-807
Further subjects:B neonatal nursing
B Ethics
B Preterm infant
B Pain
B Suffering
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:The concept of suffering is discussed among those who are cognitively aware and verbally capable to express their suffering. Due to immaturity, preterm infants’ abilities to express suffering are limited. Relieving suffering is an ethical and juridical demand of good nursing care. The purpose of this study is to describe nurses’ perceptions of the suffering of preterm infants. A descriptive qualitative approach was selected. Data were collected from essays written by nurses (n = 19) working in the neonatal intensive care unit. Inductive content analysis guided by the research question was performed. The nurses described individually determined suffering of the preterm infants according to four categories: suffering ruled by maturation, existence of suffering, individual threshold of suffering and interpreting the cues of suffering. Suffering of preterm infants is manifested by population-specific features, emphasising the need to develop sensitive interventions for relieving their suffering.
ISSN:1477-0989
Contains:Enthalten in: Nursing ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1177/0969733012475251