Abstract
Background: Social media has become integrated into daily life. The use of social media may add complexity when developing a therapeutic relationship with healthcare recipients while maintaining professional boundaries. These discussions include, but are not limited to, patients and/or family members attempting to connect with healthcare professionals through friend requests on social media, nurses posting videos on TikTok in their workplace, and a plethora of information being shared, by both consumers and health care professionals, about health conditions online. Under or over-involvement with a patient and their family/whānau may lead to negative patient care outcomes and result in caring fatigue and risk of burnout for nursing staff. These risks are especially prevalent in paediatric nursing, where families of children experiencing chronic and acute illnesses desire genuine emotional support and empathic communication alongside their child receiving treatment, often turning to social media to record the healthcare journey. Consuming patient information after work hours or when patients have been discharged, may impact a nurse s ability to conclude the therapeutic relationship, separate work life from personal life, and could lead to over-involvement in their patients well-being.
Methods: The purpose of this research was to explore how paediatric nurses are maintaining professional boundaries when patient information is readily available on social media.
Qualitative descriptive research using interviews via the Zoom platform was used to explore this phenomenon. Five nurses from a paediatric ward in two different hospitals in New Zealand participated. Data analysis was completed using the Braun and Clarke (2006) 6 steps to thematic analysis.
Findings: Thematic analysis resulted in four main themes, each supported by subthemes. Social media is ubiquitous now, nurses play a central role in a child s journey, parents don't see professional boundaries, and there is a risk to nurses contributing to patient social media. The findings suggest that several factors may challenge how nurses maintain professional boundaries within the speciality of paediatric nursing, especially with social media and patient information being available online.
Conclusion: Nurses may be unclear about their boundaries with social media and that commenting on social media is considered a breach of the NZNO Social Media Guidelines. Education is important, particularly for new graduate nurses, many of whom are digital natives, as they might not understand the importance of social media boundaries.