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Published on: May 8, 2018
[Therapeutic play]
1Department of Nursing, Chang Jung Christian University, Tainan, Taiwan, ROC.
Insights
Therapeutic play helps children cope with hospitalization stress. This nursing intervention allows children to express feelings and helps nurses understand their needs for atraumatic care.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Nursing
- Child Psychology
Context:
- Hospitalized children face challenges due to immature cognitive development and limited coping abilities.
- Stress and tension are common for children during illness and hospitalization.
Purpose:
- To introduce the concept of therapeutic play in pediatric nursing.
- To highlight therapeutic play as an effective nursing intervention for atraumatic care.
Summary:
- Therapeutic play provides children a vital outlet to express emotions and process stress related to healthcare experiences.
- This approach offers nurses valuable insights into children's cognitive and perceptual understanding of their health situation.
Impact:
- Empowers nurses to integrate therapeutic play into pediatric practice.
- Facilitates more atraumatic and child-centered nursing care, improving patient outcomes.
Abstract:
Atraumatic care is one of the important principles in pediatric nursing. Immature cognitive development, however, and limited coping ability exacerbate tension when children are ill and require hospitalization. Therapeutic play has been demonstrated as an effective nursing intervention. Through therapeutic play, children can acquire opportunities to express themselves and deal with stress related to health experiences. Also, nurses can gain insights into children's cognition, perception, and needs. This paper introduces concepts of therapeutic play. We hope that nurses will be able to incorporate it into pediatric nursing practice and provide care as atraumatically as possible.
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