Attitudes of Nurses Caring for Dying Children Towards Death

Background: Care of children’s death provoke many undesired emotions and attitudes that reflect on the quality of patients` care.

Objective: To assess death attitudes of pediatric nurses caring for dying children.

Methods: A descriptive quantitative design was utilized to accomplish the purpose of this study. A total of 170 pediatric nurses were recruited to participate in the study. The nurses` attitudes toward death were measured using the Death Attitude Profile-Revised scale.

Results: Pediatric nurses exhibited in a hierarchical order (starting from the subscale with the highest average score) the following attitudes (a) "Neutral Attitude towards Death", (b) "Fear of Death", (c) "Avoidance of Death", (d) "Acceptance of Death", (e) "Death as a means of escape". The majority of our sample (79.5%) completely agree / agree with the fact that death is without a doubt a macabre experience. Anxiety is caused by thoughts of death in 56.8% of the sample, 43.8% felt intense fear of death, 46.7% were disturbed by the finality of death and 41.8% worried about the uncertainty of what happens after death. A high percentage (49.4%) referred they avoided the thought of death at all costs. 57.4% of our participants believe that death should be treated as a normal, indisputable and inevitable fact, while 62.9% reported that they neither fear nor welcome death. It is also noted that for 38.9% of the sample, death is a release from pain and suffering. Finally, it is worth emphasizing that 39.7% of the sample reported that they were looking forward to a reunion with their loved ones after their death. On the other hand, only 27.7% reported that they were looking forward to experience life after death.

Conclusion: Providing a reflective narrative environment in which nurses can express their personal feelings about death and dying could be a potentially effective approach.