Investigation of health professionals' attitudes to dying patient care and respectful death principles, levels of psychological flexibility and the relationship between these

The study was conducted to examine the relationship between health professionals' attitudes towards caring for the dying patient and their perceptions of death, attitudes towards respectable death principles, and psychological flexibility. The study was cross-sectional and relationship-seeking, with the participation of a total of 236 healthcare professionals (nurses and physicians) who directly care for and continue their treatment to inpatient or outpatient patients at Abant İzzet Baysal University İzzet Baysal Training and Research Hospital between June and October 2021. Personal Information Form, Frommelt Attitude Toward Care of the Dying Instrument, Attitudes Towards Dying Principles Rating Scale and Psychological Resilience Scale were used to collect data. Data were evaluated with Pearson correlation, Student's t, ANAVO Analysis of Variance and Multiple Linear Regression analysis. The mean age of health professionals is 32.09±7.03(21-54) years and 69.1% are women. Their definition of death expressed 37.3% as "the mystery of life, an unbelievable situation", 28.8% as "reminder" and 10.2% as "loneliness". A positive significant relationship (r=.26; p<0.01) was found between the attitude of health professionals to the dying patient and psychological resilience. It was found that the level of adoption of respectable death principles and other demographic or occupational factors had no effect (p>0.05). In the regression analysis, "being present" (β = .28), a sub-dimension of psychological resilience, significantly predicted the level of approach to the dying patient (R=.29, R2 = .09, Adjusted R2 = .06). As a result, it was seen that 6% of the change in the level of approach of healthcare professionals to the dying patient was explained by "being in the moment".