Ara Student Tackles Important Topic With Masters Thesis
Emma Densem graduated from Ara this year with a Master of Nursing, gained through the creation of a thesis that explores a particularly sensitive and important topic.
Emma, who works as a Nurse Educator at Christchurch Hospital as well as on the floor as a nurse in the Children’s Haematology Oncology ward, drew upon this latter experience for her thesis, which explored how nurses cope with childrens’ deaths within a hospital setting. Her personal experience with this most sensitive of situations has led her becoming acutely aware of the complexities involved for professional carers.
“I was worried that nurses might not want to share their experiences, but I quickly had all the participants I needed for my research. These experiences are obviously something that is felt profoundly by those who encounter them and sharing them was a beneficial opportunity” she says.
Although palliative care and hospice services are well established in the field of adult medical care, paediatric palliative care is a relatively recent discipline. Emma’s research has a broader scope than this, examining the experiences of nurses dealing with both palliative situations and sudden deaths, but does agree with previous palliative care-only studies in emphasising the overwhelming emotional demands of such contexts, and has underlined just how profound an impact the death of a young patient can have upon the lives of those who care for them. The stress of this has been recognized within research as a significant risk factor to the mental health of associated professionals, which can manifest as anxiety, withdrawal and depression.
Emma’s thesis concluded with the finding that “reaching a plausible understanding” of the sequence of events was a vital step in overcoming negative cognitive and emotional impacts of the deaths. This finding is in line with other research in the field, which supports the idea that education and debriefing processes can help nurses to adapt to the ongoing stress of their professional context; in that ‘reaching plausible understanding’ and making sense of the sequence of events may be aided by the provision of relevant information about death and the dying process, as well as about the particulars of paediatric care.
As she was still in fulltime employment while studying, Emma foresaw the need to get some assistance with the volume of material her research would generate, and so she applied to, and received a grant from the Ara Foundation, which enabled her to get help with the transcription and editing of her interviews.
At the time, Emma spoke about her experience to the Foundation and said “When I went to my supervisors and said this is what I wanted to do and this is the time it will take, they asked whether I would be able to achieve it. Without the grant it would have been difficult, and I may not have completed research that I felt passionate about. I am grateful for the grant that has enabled me to complete a piece of work that is interesting, not just to myself, but to others.”
Emma’s research was supervised by Dr.s. Isabel Jamieson and Rea Daellenbach. Dr. Jamieson is the Institute’s principal nursing lecturer and a senior nursing lecturer at the University of Canterbury. Her research focus has been trained upon the healthcare workforce, and she has also explored models of clinical teaching and learning and the graduate nurse experience.
Dr. Daellenbach also lectures at Ara, for the midwifery programme and in the post-graduate health practice programmes. With a professional history as a sociologist, Dr. Daellenbach conducts research in areas that include childbirth activism, rural midwifery and sustainability.
Emma feels that her own study encourages people to share experiences and emotions.
“It’s obviously something people want to talk about. I really hope to share what I find widely and the research helps nurses feel better supported to manage these experiences.”