The intermediary role of the empathy in the effect of attitudes of the nurses who serve to moribund patients to work-life quality

In this study it was aimed to express the intermediary role of the empathy in the effect of the attitudes of the nurses who serve to moribund patients to work-life quality. The target population of the study planned as cross sectionally based upon the field survey is composed of 251 nurses who work in the intensive care units of Training and Research Hospital of Sakarya University and Yenikent State Hospital. It was aimed to reach to all nurses without specifying a sample and 236 nurses were reached to in total. Three scales (Frommelt attitude scale with respect to serving to moribund individuals (FATCOD), the scale of work-life quality and the scale of Toronto Empathy) and a questionnaire form consisting of socio-demographic features of the participants were used in achieving the data. For the analysis of the data, correlation analysis, process macro regression analysis, t test in independent samples, one-way analysis of variance as well as the descriptive statistics methods were used. According to the results of study, the attitudes of the nurses with respect to serving to moribund patients (2.51±0.314), the perception of work-life quality (2,79±0,608) and the level of the empathy (2.42±0.475) were found to be in a low rating. When the relation among FATCOD, work-life quality and the empathy were examined, it was figured out that while a significant relationship between FATCOD and work-life quality was not found, there was a positively meaningful relationship between FATCOD and empathy. There is a negatively meaningful relationship between the perception of work-life quality and empathy. In other words, as long as the empathy levels of the participants increase, the perceptions of the work-life quality decrease. Additionally, one another result is that there is no effect of FATCOD to work-life quality and empathy has no intermediary role in this relationship. As a result of the gap analysis, it was found that only educational background created a meaningful difference in participants' work-life perceptions and the other socio-demographic variants did not create statistically meaningful difference in FATCOD, the perception of work-life quality and empathy. In accordance with the results obtained from the study, the conduction of in-service trainings, seminars, congresses regarding the development of empathy skills of the nurses in intensive care units, the support of the participations, the perpetual and updated organization of the on the job trainings related to the topics "Care services applied to moribund patients, the duties and responsibilities of the patient care team, the holistic approach to moribund patients and its importance" are recommended. Additionally based upon the finding of meaningful relationship between work-life quality and stress levels, the organizations of the studies related to identifying and removing the stress factors in work life are among the recommendations.