Younger children's nursing students are uniquely placed to provide emotional care for young people in hospital and promote for them a sense of normalcy

Objectives: To highlight the emotional impact of being in the hospital for young people and to explore the impact of the care by younger student nurses on promoting a sense of "normalcy" for them. Background: Adolescence is strongly influenced by peer relationships and is a unique period in life that requires the achievement of many developmental tasks. An important task of adolescent is developing relationships with peers and feeling part of a recognised peer group. Young people prefer engaging in conversation with people of their own age because they feel less likely to be judged by their peers. Design: Heideggerian hermeneutic phenomenological study. Method: A Heideggerian phenomenological study was undertaken. Individual unstructured interviews were conducted with eleven younger student nurses (aged 17 years and 5 months-18 years and 11 months) and nine young people with a chronic illness (aged 13 years and 7 months-18 years and 1 month). The data was collected in 2009. Results: Young people in the hospital with a chronic illness experienced moments in time when they had nothing to think about but the business of getting better. During unique caring interactions, younger children's nursing students were able to help them temporarily forget about their illness and promote for them a sense of normalcy. Conclusions: Younger children's nursing students are in a unique position to engage in ontological caring interactions with the young people due to their similarity in age and stage of development. They are uniquely placed to help the young people reintegrate back into their known "lifeworlds" and promote for them a sense of "normalcy". Relevance to Clinical Practice: Clinical staff need to be alerted to the emotional distress caused to young people during long periods of time in the hospital. Practitioners and nurse educators should be facilitating younger student nurses to interact with the young people in a therapeutic way and the care delivered to young people in the hospital should promote a sense of normalcy for them. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.