The best response the registered nurse can say is statement 3. “I know that this is difficult time for you. Let’s take this day by day and make your child’s routine as normal as possible.”
Communication is vital when dealing with families that are dealing with chronic illness among the family members. According to Rosland, Heisler, and Piette (221), the outcome of chronic illness in a family member highly depends on the social support provided by the family. Thus, the family will need the support of nurses to cope with such a situation. One critical issue to consider is that most families may develop denial that their child has developed a chronic illness. Denial itself is natural and the nurse’s assurance that everything will be handled normally can be helpful. According to Gibson and Sloanes (189), treating the child as normal as possible helps the parents develop a form of coping mechanism and provides hope. Further, the case of neuroblastoma may require the child to be transferred to the oncology ward and the issue of transferring the child may be hard for the family. Delaying such a move embraces the concept of making the child routine as normal as possible until when the family will be ready (Gibson and Sloanes 189).
Additionally, every family functions differently. Thus, the approach taken by a nurse needs to be individualized to that family (Knafl and Gilliss 192). Further, this response may provide the nurse with more interactions with the family, which enables the nurse with to identify the family’s different response patterns of illnesses and will thus be able to develop more specific nursing interventions that are suited to the needs of the family.
Works Cited
.Gibson, Faith, and Louise Sloanes. Cancer in Children and Young People: Acute Nursing Care. Chichester, England: John Wiley & Sons, 2008. Internet resource.
Knafl, Kathleen, & Catherine Gilliss, (2009). “Families and Chronic Illness: A Synthesis of Current Research.” Journal of Family Nursing, 2002 (8) 178-198.
Rosland, Ann-Marie, Michele Heisler, and John Piette. "The impact of family behaviors and communication patterns on chronic illness outcomes: a systematic review." Journal of Behavioral Medicine 35, no. 2 (2012): 221-239.
