Endocrine Abstracts

Background: In the human communication process listening is often reduced to a passive, innate activity and often considered as ’just listening’ (Wolvin 2010). Kilkelly & Donnelly (2011) advocates the promotion of a listening culture whereby children are able to voice and have their views listened to, not only to satisfy legal requirements. Much of paediatric services today are provided in the out-patient setting.

Objective: The study aimed to explore and describe the current listening culture and gain understanding of the challenges and difficulties that children’s nurses face when listening to patients in an outpatient environment. The purpose of the study was to provide a description of the current culture of listening, which could prompt other children’s nurses to reflect on their own listening behaviour in practice, ultimately impacting on their clinical practice and patient care.

Methods: A mini-ethnographic approach was utilized and data collected using participant observation and unstructured interviews involving five children’s nurses. Participant observation permitted participants to be observed in their natural environment. Interviewing participants involved clarification of events that occurred during data collection and discussions on listening in practice. Data analysis involved a grounded theorizing and a content analysis approach.

Results: Four sub-themes emerged from the data: connection, availability, rushing and pressure, and time. Two main themes emerged: dis-joined listening engagement and subjective temporal listening.

Conclusions: Dis-joined listening engagement refers to a mis-alignment between the purpose of listeners (nurse) and the goals of the speakers (children). Lack of time is frequently used by children’s nurses as a reason for not being able to listen. On closer exploration, the research highlighted children’s nurses are frequently referring to subjective time not objective time. Subjective time is needed for engaging and empowering patients. Improving the listening awareness of children’s nurses could prove beneficial for patient care and compliance.