End-of-Life Communication Experiences of Nurses with Family Members Before and After the Death of a Child in Paediatric Oncology Services: Qualitative Descriptive Study

Objective: Whilst the effective communication is essential to providing family centred bereavement care, research on this topic is still limited. The objective of this study is to explore end-of-life communication experiences of nurses with family members before and after the death of a child in paediatric oncology services. Material and Methods: A qualitative descriptive study was conducted using semistructured interviews and thematic analysis. The purposive sampling technique was employed to collect data from 14 nurses working in paediatric oncology services. In this study, 14 in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted by 2 researchers using the Zoom video conferencing platform. Results: The data analysis generated 5 themes and 14 subthemes. The findings reveal that nurses experience multidimensional difficulties at emotional, ethical and organisational levels when communicating with families during the process of child death. Barriers, such as difficulty in talking about death, a lack of interpreters and long working hours, negatively affect communication. On the other hand, therapeutic communication techniques, such as open and honest communication, facilitate this process. Conclusion: Our results suggest that organisational support for nurses and the development of effective end-of-life communication strategies specific to paediatric oncology services are essential to provide dignified and family-centred care. This study contributes to improving the quality of family-centred care by providing evidence-based information and important strategies from the nurse perspective for effective communication guidelines and policies tailored to paediatric palliative and end-of-life care needs.