Three wishes of a child with cancer.

Thirty-seven children in Taiwan with cancer, ranging in age from 4 to 16 were asked to identify their three wishes. Nearly three-quarters of the total sample "wished" to go home from the hospital and 90% used one of their wishes in hopes to be cured. Preschool youngsters were more eager to resume play activities (64%), to go home (36%), and to own some desired object (36%); while school-age children hoped primarily to be cured (44%), to go home (39%) and to have more physical exercise (28%). Adolescents wished to have their disease cured (100%), return to school (63%) and to go home (37%). Gender differences seemed to have little impact on the wishes of children. The following study underscores the need for nurses to understand the hopes and dreams of children with cancer in order to work with these children toward their own envisioned futures while making the present as least traumatic as possible. Indeed, such mutual goal-setting is at the heart of the therapeutic nursing process for clients of any age and any culture.