Health care provider's responses to children's resistance to peripheral vein cannulation: A qualitative observational study

Aims and Objectives Health care and treatment should be voluntary, but restraint is often used during treatment of children. Knowledge about how health care providers respond to preschool children's resistance is lacking and can help understand current paediatric care in hospitals. The aim of the present article was to provide knowledge about how healthcare providers respond to preschool children's resistance during the clinical procedure of peripheral vein cannulation. Design An explorative qualitative research design was developed for this study. Methods Observations with video recording were used to collect data. Eight nurses and seven physicians participated in the study (n = 15). Their responses to preschool children's (n = 6) resistance were studied during 14 attempts of peripheral vein cannulation. Consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research (COREQ) were used. Results The healthcare providers made 380 responses to children's resistive expressions, interpreted within four main types, responses to acknowledge the child, responses to distract the child, responses to persuade the child and responses to reject the child. All main types of responses were used by both nurses and physicians. Regardless of the amount of resistance the children expressed, all children received distracting and acknowledging responses. Rejecting responses were used approximately twice as much in the implementation phase as in the preparation phase. Distraction, persuasion and rejection began in the preparation phase and increased in the implementation phase. Conclusions The main types and sub-types of responses showed how healthcare providers use a wide array of responses to meet children's resistance during peripheral vein cannulation. Relevance to clinical practice The results can enable health care providers to become aware of their own practices during peripheral vein cannulation and other clinical procedures and to elaborate on their use of responses that can be considered intrinsically less child-friendly.