Greek nurses attitudes towards death

Abstract

Introduction: Several studies explore the attitudes of nurses caring for dying patients but this is the first one exploring Greek nurses’ attitude toward death. Purpose/Objectives: To assess how Greek nurses feel about death and examine any relationships between their attitudes and demographic factors. Design: Descriptive quantitative. The sample comprised of 150 hospital nurses (response rate 64%).Method: Voluntary and anonymous completion of the Death Attitude Profile–Revised (DAP-R), and a demographic questionnaire. The Death Attitude Profile–Revised (DAP-R) (Wong, Reker, & Gesser, 1994) is a 32-item scale that uses a seven-point Likert scale to measure respondents' attitudes toward death. Demographic data, including gender, age, previous experience working with terminally ill patients, work setting (inpatient versus outpatient), years practising as an RN were collected. No identifying information was collected from the participants, ensuring the results were anonymous. Results: 82% of respondents were female with a mean age of 35.54 years (19 min 48 max). The mean nursing experience was 12.1 years. Average scores on the DAP-R sub-scales ranged from 2.90 (escape sub-scale) to 5.63 (neutral sub-scale). Statistically significant relationships were noted among gender, and scores on the DAP-R. Nursing experience and age were the variables most likely to predict nurses' attitudes toward death. Nurses with specific education on palliative care had less difficulty talking about death and dying. The existence of Hospital-based teams (known as palliative care teams, supportive care teams, or symptom assessment teams) had statistically significant relationship with fear of death and neutral acceptance scores Conclusions: In Greek hospitals nurses with more work experience tended to have more positive attitudes toward death and caring for dying patients.