Reflection Report: Nursing Module 1 - 5 R's of Reflection

This report is a reflective study using the 5 R's model (Report, Respond, Relate, Reason, Reconstruct) on the experience of a mother caring for her chronically ill child. The report begins with a summary of the article, highlighting the child's medical conditions (defected autoimmune system and autism spectrum) and the mother's struggles, including frequent hospital visits and the emotional toll of caregiving. The reflection then explores the author's personal responses to the situation, including feelings of sadness, depression, and the impact on her social life. The author, a surgical nurse, relates her professional experience to the case, discussing potential interventions and the importance of patient-centered care. The reason section examines the limits of caregiving and the mother's unwavering hope. Finally, the reconstruct section outlines how a similar situation could be handled, emphasizing patient-centered care, mobility aids, and the potential use of childcare or nursing home services. The reflection concludes with a list of relevant references.

Running head: REFLECTION
Reflection
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author’s name

1REFLECTION
5R reflection model
The following reflection will be done using the 5 R’s (report, respond, relate, reason and
reconstruct) reflection model.
Report
The following report is a reflective study by Shawna Wingert. It is a first-person
reflective essay where the author is stating the role of a mother while caring for her sick child. In
the article, the author or the mother tells about her child, how he has a chronic illness;
specifically, the child has a defected autoimmune system. The person who has been represented
as the mother of the child in the reflection states that the child had four hospital visits and more
than 48 prescriptions filled over a year. Along with the defected autoimmune system, the child
has an autism spectrum also. The reflection shows the struggle of the mother, regarding how
much she struggles while taking care of the child (Wingert, 2015). The reported issue that had
been identified in this article was the distress a patient/family member feels when there is a lack
of communication. The child was unable to reciprocate with the mother, and the mother feels
broken to see her child suffering from a life-threatening disorder.
Respond
While reading the reflection, I was able to understand the pain through which the child
was going through, since he could not converse properly, especially with his mother, it was a lot
of pain. The child was not able to express most of his feelings, though when he was asked how
he is feeling, he used to nod. But not only was the child but taking care of the child also very
stressful and depressing for the mother. Whenever she used to watch other mothers and normal

2REFLECTION
children, she used to become depressed and used to feel a breakdown. It became really
depressing while reading the reflection.
Even though taking care of a sick child was stressful, but the author stated that there were
good and bad days also. Such as when they used to travel to several places or learn new things, it
used to be joyful and thus those were good days, as it helped them to not think about the sickness
rather think of how to treat them. Rest if the days when they used to stay back at home, they used
to just take rest and pray that the sickness gets cured.
Prior to the assessment of the child’s disorder, the mother had an open social life. She
visited a community centre and helped people to cope up with stress. She had many friends and
went shopping with them at regular interval. Thus, it was noted that she was a happy person,
however, with the assessment of the child’s illness, all her social activities were restricted, and
she was bound to her house and hospital for caring her child. There was a strong bond between
the child, and her mother was she loved her child dearly. She was attached to her child deeply,
and it broke her heart to see her child suffer. It had a negative psychological impact on the
mother; thus; it drained her mental and physical well-being to a large extent.
Relate
I am a surgical nurse (Kvarnström, Jangland & Dahlgren, 2018). Thus, in this scenario, I
may not be very much helpful, but I can help the child or the mother whenever they start to face
distress or shock. I will help in finding the triggers for anxiety in the child and also will help him
by giving soothing mechanisms. Since I have the role of monitoring the patient and address signs
of distress, shock or any other problems. Though my specialization or my skills are more
effective after any surgical process and in this reflection, there is no sign of such; thus, I will be

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of very little help. In respect to the case, it is important that the mother have optimal knowledge
of the condition suffered by the child and offer care. The intervention that can be opted in this
case includes learning of pain management, gaining awareness about the condition from
Australian society of clinical immunology and allergy and Raisingchildren.net.au (Raising
Children Network, 2020). The referral to various organizations such as Amaze and Get in Touch
in Australia.
Reason
Every person has a limit of how much they can take workload; some have the ability to
take more, whereas some can only take a little amount of workload. Though a mother can do
anything for her child. Like in the reflection, even after the child is having defected autoimmune
system, and autism spectrum, the mother, has not lost hope. She still hopes and thinks that her
child will become normal someday. The lady has to experience a struggle every single day.
Being a mother of a chronically ill child, she does not feel that she has lived since her all time is
gone upon taking care of the child. The child has walking difficulty. But since he received a
wheelchair, thus it has become easy for him to move around freely and now both the mother and
the child can travel along with each other or else it would have become hard for her to carry him
(Wingert, 2015).
Reconstruct
If a similar thing occurs, then I would first try to focus on patient-centred care model.
Though I am a surgical nurse, I would ask other staff members or the family of the patient to ask
for suitable personnel who will be able to take care of the patient. Secondly, a wheelchair will be
allowed for the patient to ease the mobility of the patient, since it can be hard to carry a person
on the shoulder as their weight can be too much to bear. It would be better to send the child to a

4REFLECTION
child care organization, or if the patient is an adult, then they should be sent to a nursing home
where they can be taken care in a proper way.
References
Glenn, A. D. (2015). Using online health communication to manage chronic sorrow: mothers of
children with rare diseases speak. Journal of pediatric nursing, 30(1), 17-24.
Kvarnström, S., Jangland, E., & Dahlgren, M. A. (2018). Introducing the nurse practitioner into
the surgical ward: an ethnographic study of interprofessional teamwork
practice. Scandinavian journal of caring sciences, 32(2), 765-771.
Nikfarid, L., Rassouli, M., Borimnejad, L., & Alavimajd, H. (2017). Experience of chronic
sorrow in mothers of children with cancer: A phenomenological study. European Journal
of Oncology Nursing, 28, 98-106.
Raising Children Network. (2020). Child and parent disability services. Retrieved 10 March
2020, from https://raisingchildren.net.au/grown-ups/services-support/services-families/
disability-services-family
Wingert, S. (2015). What It's Like to Be a Mother of a Chronically Ill Child. Retrieved 6 March
2020, from https://www.huffpost.com/entry/what-its-like-to-be-a-mother-of-a-
chronically-ill-child_b_8511894