Attitudes and experiences of nurses towards death and caring for dying people

Aim of this study was to examine nurses' attitudes and experiencestoward death and caring for dying patients. Descriptive and cross-sectional typeof this research was conducted at two universities and one state hospitalslocated in Ankara, Turkey. Sample of this study was 300 nurses whom workingin adult inpatient clinics and intensive care units at these hospitals.In data collections, socio-demographics form, the Death Attitude Profile-Revised (DAP-R) and Frommelt's Attitude Towards Caring for Dying Patients(FATCOD) were used. Turkish translation, back translation and validation hasbeen done for this study and applied to 100 nurses. For DAP-R ContentValidation Index computed as 0.99, Cronbach's alpha 0.80; for FATCODcontent validation index was 0.83 and Cronbach's alpha 0.69. Data analyzedwith using descriptive, one-way ANOVA, chi-square, correlation and regressiontests.Mean age of nurses was 28; majority of them were women, single andhas BSN degree, mean working duration in nursing was 6 years. More than halfof the nurses has strong religious belief (52.3%) and indicated that theirreligious beliefs are a strong influence on their attitude toward death and dying.Most of them indicated direct involvement with caring for dying patients (83.3%);experiencing grief (37.5 %) and not want to care for dying patients (62.3%).Majority of them were not comfortable to talk about death with their patients.Almost all of them were agreed that the family and friends of the patient shouldbe permitted to visit at any time and stated the importance of respecting todying patient and families religious belief and cultural values.viiiThe mean DAP-R scale subgroups were from 3.5 to 5.5; mean FATCODscores was 99.9 ± 8.7. Statistically significant relationships were found amongmarital status, working years in nursing, level of education, previous experiencewith caring for terminally ill patients, religious belief and scores on the FATCODand DAP-R (p< 0.05). When compared with other studies in literature it wasfound that FATCOD mean score was lower and showed less positive attitudes.Based on these results, end of life care should be included in theeducational programs that would provide awareness of nurses? own negative orpositive attitudes towards dying patients, increase their communication skillsand enhance the coping strategies has been suggested.Key words; Death, end of life care, death attitude, caring for dying people,nursing