Nursing Professionalism in Childcare: A Scoping Review

Abstract Background Professionalism is a concept described with various attributes that require actions in the clinical practice environments for improvement. It is anticipated that formal training of professional nurses validates their nursing professionalism attributes and their ability to render quality care to the neonates, infants and under-5 children. The mortality rates of neonates, infants and under-5 children are high in the care of professional nurses who acquired the eight nursing professionalism attributes of the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario, namely: knowledge, spirit of inquiry, accountability, autonomy, advocacy, innovation and visionary, collegiality and collaboration, ethics and values. Methods This study aimed to review the available evidence on nursing professionalism attributes that professional nurses require to provide quality care to neonates, infants and under-5 child care. A scoping literature review was conducted on Cochrane, EBSCOhost and Web of Science, PubMed, ProQuest and Scopus databases. The keywords combination used was (nurse professionalism) AND (pediatric care) (nurse professionalism or nursing as a profession) AND (paediatric or pediatric or children or child or infant or young person) identify studies in the past ten years. Results The search yielded (n = 1732), of which seven studies were included. Three studies were conducted in Europe, two in the United States, one in Korea, and one was a narrative review. The settings were hospitals and palliative care. The five themes and respective sub-themes that emerged from the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario are knowledge, accountability, advocacy, collegiality and collaboration, ethics and values. Three themes namely: spirit of enquiry, autonomy, innovation and visionary did not emerge. Conclusion Seven studies were identified for the review, and five out of eight themes of the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario that characterise nursing professionalism emerged. There were no studies published in the African and primary health care context on professionalism attributes of professional nurses to provide quality nursing care to neonates, infants and under-5 children. All the emerging themes emphasised the need for PNs to be trained in professionalism attributes as the foundation for providing quality nursing care to this population.