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School of Child and Youth Care

New CYC Publication by Dr. Amarens Matthiesen and Dr. Alison Gerlach

September 26, 2025

The cover of the Nursing Ethics journal: a bright yellow background with blue text and an image of a blue hand holding a yellow heart.

One of our alumna, Dr. Amarens Matthiesen, has published an article titled: “Relational Autonomy in Pediatric Healthcare: A Scoping Review” in Nursing Ethics. Co-authored with her former PhD supervisor, Dr. Alison Gerlach, the paper explores how the concept of relational autonomy has been applied to pediatric health care contexts.

Relational autonomy was most often linked to understanding the complex ways in which children’s (healthcare) decision-making is shaped by relationships with caregivers, healthcare providers, and broader contexts. The review highlights the need for more research centering children’s own perceptions of experiencing and expressing autonomy in healthcare, particularly in the Global South.

The paper may be of interest to anyone working across the fields of ethics, child health, children’s rights, and childhood studies. It can be openly accessed via: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09697330251366601