Children’s views of nursing and medical roles: implications for advanced nursing practice

Description/Abstract

Aim: Changes in healthcare delivery make it increasingly likely that children accessing ambulatory care will receive their health assessment and management from nurses rather than junior doctors. As part of a larger study exploring the safety and efficacy of nurse-led pre-operative assessment (Rushforth et al 2006) this study aimed to discover children’s views of nursing and medical roles.
Method: Data were collected from 63 children using drawing and writing activity sheets during preadmission events.
Findings: Findings suggest that there is a clear demarcation in children’s minds between doctors and
nurses. In addition to the gender differences, children saw ‘caring’ as a nursing role and ‘curing’ as a medical role. However, there has been some change since earlier studies with only three children noting that nurses ‘helped doctors’ or ‘did what doctors tell them’ and less than a quarter of the children drawing nurses with hats.
Conclusion: As with all other patients, children should be fully informed of the status of the practitioner undertaking their care; understanding how they perceive the roles of doctors and nurses will support this information giving.