The team critique that has been written in response to a proposed article has proved to be quite useful for my nursing practice. The conclusions that the team has reached contributed not only to the enrichment of knowledge on a specific topic, but gave a great opportunity to utilize this knowledge in the nursing practice. The findings in the article under consideration gave an idea of the emotions that a child having a chronic illness, as well as the family of this child, may experience. This group of conclusions established a firm basis for the future dealing with challenges which such children and families face. Another group of conclusions, namely, those related to the methodology used in the article, the accuracy of this methodology, certain drawbacks of the study, and bias that the researchers did or did not account for also contributed to the utilization of this information in the nursing practice. Though this information did not deal directly with nursing practice, it gave a greater understanding of the value of the research in nursing practice. It is necessary to consider both these groups of conclusions in more detail in order to reflect on the work that has been done on the given article. Thus, the findings of the article and team critique can be used in the nursing practice to deal with the challenges that chronically ill children and their families may experience and to contribute to the sphere of nursing with adequate research and studies with properly and accurately designed methodology.
What should be mentioned above all is that the findings obtained in the article under analysis and further analyzed and interpreted in the course of the teamwork can find a number of practical applications in the nursing practice. First of all, knowing the emotions that a child ill with, for instance, cancer or diabetes experiences allows finding a proper approach to this child and improving his/her life within the family where other members have to take constant care of this child. It is namely this care that often accounts for the child’s feelings of anger, sorrow, loss, and stress typical for chronically ill children. It is a common belief that children with chronic illnesses “face a multitude of stressors that occur in the context of a significant threat to their own survival” (Vingerhoets, Nyklicek, & Denollet, 2008, p. 72). Gannoni & Shute’s (2009) findings have proven that some children were rather angry because of what they felt during their illness, as well as their research has reported about a number of children experiencing shock, frustration, nervousness, confusion, and the like feelings.
As far as the parents are concerned, their emotions range from numbness to even guilt. As mentioned in the reports of the participants, some parents were unable to refocus on the needs of their sick child owing to their own depression, even though they knew that their child required increased attention and care (Gannoni & Shute, 2009). This part of the researchers’ findings is of special importance. Their greatest value consists in their possible contribution to different support programs and training courses that may be organized by the nursing specialists. Understanding the psychological state of parents who have discovered that their children have a chronic illness is already the first important step on the way to helping these parents to survive and not only ensure their sick child with the proper level of care, but also provide this care to the child in an obtrusive manner that would correspond to a specific psychological state the chronically ill child is in. Therefore, one of the major contributions of the findings obtained from the article is that they can be productively applied in the nursing practice when facilitating the psychological burden placed on chronically ill children and their families.
This perfectly illustrates that the findings of the team research study critique help to realize the role of a nurse as a caregiver, the primary role of this specialist. These findings may be further used in the nursing practice as a guide to the functions that a nursing professional should fulfill in order to be helpful to chronically ill children and their families. For me personally, these findings have outlined my major objectives that I am to reach in my nursing practice; they consist in fulfilling such functions as providing a high level of social support to the families in question, acting as a resource to supply these families with information and education, as well as take all the possible measures to facilitate the adaptation of chronically ill children and their families to new circumstances (Theofanidis, 2007). In this way, the findings of the team research study critique have contributed to my nursing practice.
The final, but no less important, thing to mention is that the findings of the team critique have given me a perfect idea of how to carry out research in nursing. It should be noted that I have learned much about such type of research when analyzing the article of the professional researchers. The evaluation of the accuracy of their methodology has revealed the most and the least relevant methods of data collection for such studies; this information can also be useful for my nursing practice, in case I make an attempt to carry out similar research. Though certain drawbacks in the given article were still present (such as the absence of the research questions that would give a reader a clear idea of what exactly the researchers are interested in or the predominance of the female participants), the article was still acknowledged by the team as the one of high quality. This is why there are no changes that I would introduce into it; this study, without modifications, can be applied in my practice setting. Thus, the findings of the article and team critique were valuable not only for my direct nursing practice but for my possible future research in nursing.
Drawing a conclusion, it can be stated that Gannoni and Shute’s article and team critique on it were of great contribution not only to my nursing practice but to me as a future researcher. In the course of the teamwork, it has been discovered that chronically ill children and their families are prone to experience certain emotions; I will be able to use these findings when providing help to such families. Besides, this contributes to my realization of my role as a caregiver and outlines my functions in nursing. And finally, the findings of the team critique were helpful to me as a researcher who, perhaps, once will be able to make a contribution into the sphere of nursing.
Reference List
Shute, R., & Gannoi, A. (2010). Parental and child perspectives on adaptation to childhood chronic illness: a qualitative study. Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 15(1), 39-53.
Theofanidis, D. (2007). Chronic illness in childhood: psychosocial adaptation and nursing support for the child and family. Health Science Journal, , 2, 4-6. Web.
Vingerhoets, A.J. J., Nyklicek, I., & Denollet, J. (2008). Emotion regulation: conceptual and clinical issues. New York: Springer.