Turkish Abstract Full Text PDF Similar Articles Mail to Author

¹Trakya Üniversitesi Sağlık Bilimleri Fakültesi, Hemşirelik Bölümü, Edirne
²Edirne Devlet Hastanesi, Edirne Currently, 75% of children who have been diagnosed as having cancer recover from this illness while 25% of them go through the terminal period and die due to the recurrence of cancer and not responding to the treatment. A child who is in terminal period belongs to a patient group that cannot get a positive result from the medical-curative treatments and can only benefit from palliative treatment. Palliative care eases the suffering of the patients in terminal period, lessens their agitation, in a way, consoles them. In short, it is a multidisciplinary and holistic approach with the objective that both the patients and their families maintain the quality of their lives as much as possible. Palliative care in children contains the assessment and handling of the childrens' and family's physical, psychosocial and spiritual needs and also symptom control and support to family during the illness and mourning process. It is among the duties of nurses to provide this care which both the child in the terminal period and his/her family desperately need. The nurses who offer their help to the children in terminal period and their families should know about the palliative cure and be able to apply it. For this reason, this paper deals with the palliative cure for children in terminal period and their families. Keywords : Children; nurse; palliative care; terminal period