Death Education: What Should Student Children’s Nurses be Taught?

Abstract

Children's nursing has developed rapidly over the last 50 years and continues to be a dynamic process. In many respects children's nursing educators, together with their practice colleagues, have been central to these developments. There is concordance that all children have the right to the highest standards of care and this especially applies to the small numbers who die; however, the management of dying children continues to challenge all involved. The reasons for this may relate in part to deficiencies in death education for student children's nurses. This paper reports on a qualitative study that explored delivery of death education by a small number of UK children's nursing lecturers. The results and recommendations presented here may help to inform death education, and ultimately help to facilitate high-quality care for dying and bereaved children and their families.