Care of the dying patients and good interaction in patient encounters are part of the basic job description in nursing. Death of a child is experienced as an especially heavy affair among the health care staff. However, in practical training and future workplaces nursing students are taking care of children in pediatric palliative and hospice care.

The theme and motivation for this thesis started from my own experiences in nursing practical training, where I noticed that I had a need for studies and reliable information in encountering a dying child. At the same time my teacher in child nursing suggested a thesis about child hospice care. The partner of this functional bachelor thesis was Oulu University of Applied Sciences (OAMK). The aim of this project work was to produce self-learning material, on how to encounter children in hospice care, for students of OAMK studying the child nursing courses. The purpose was to provide information based on the latest studies about dying child patient encounters and pediatric palliative and hospice care. The quality targets set for this information material were clarity, appeal, visual classiness and informative. The goal was that upcoming nurses could get more skills in incurably sick child patient encounters. As a result, nursing teachers could get informative electronic course material as a teaching tool. Objective was also to confirm own professional identity and learn more about the children hospice care.

In September 2018 a PowerPoint slideshow was created based on researched knowledge in child hospice and palliative care. This material is a summary from the collected database from summer 2018 with dying child encounters in the center. The slideshow also presents a child’s own understanding and behavior towards death during different age periods, ethics and legislation in child hospice care as well as coping as a nurse. Lastly, the slideshow has combined questions from the subject and challenges students to dialogue with fellow students. The material pursues to generate ideas and thoughts and give reliable information for professional growth.

As a response to feedback from the nursing students test group and teachers, I made a video in Moodle- Open source learning platform with the Collaborate- tool. The 44- minute video presents makes the audiovisual learning material more interesting and memorable. The feedback was positive and the students felt that they got multiple benefits from the material. The feedback shows that I reached the targets set for this project. There is a possibility to develop the material in the future with a sequel that concentrates on encountering the family of the dying child.