ATTITUDES IN FRONT OF DEATH: NURSES’ VIEWS IN THE HOSPITAL ENVIRONMENT

a cross-sectional, quantitative, exploratory and descriptive study, carried out in a hospital in the North of Portugal, with 981 nurses, who answered a questionnaire composed by the scale of evaluation of the Profile of Attitudes about Death. Data collection was carried out in February and March 2018 in the services, and the findings went through descriptive and analytical statistical analysis with the aid of the SPSS software.

Results:

the nurses revealed to have the attitudes of approach (36.29 points), fear (27.82 points), neutrality (27.25 points), avoidance (17.48 points) and escape (15.52 points) in the face of death, and these were associated with the different socio-occupational characteristics of these professionals, including gender, marital status, age, having children, type of employment relationship, professional category, specialty, time of service, and the practice or belief of some religion.

Conclusion:

the profile of the nurses' attitudes towards death is influenced by their socio-professional characteristics, which points to the importance of rethinking training strategies in the academic environment, in health organizations and in services, favoring the better reception of patients and family members, but also in relieving the suffering of the professionals in the face of finitude.

DESCRIPTORS:
Attitude towards death; Death; Nursing; Hospital care; Nursing care

	Original Scale	Scale Translated and Adapted by Loureiro	This article
Fear of Death	0.86	0.84	0.833
Death Avoidance	0.65	0.87	0.899
Neutral Acceptance	0.88	0.64	0.619
Approach Acceptance	0.97	0.91	0.923
Escape Acceptance	0.84	0.82	0.804

Attitude towards death	Agree*	(%)
1. Death is undoubtedly a cruel experience	636	64.83
2. The prospect of my own death causes me anxiety	539	54.94
3. Death must be seen as a natural, undeniable and inevitable event	883	90.01
4. Death is a natural aspect of life	936	95.20
5. I do not fear death, nor desire it	542	55.24
6. It scares me that death means the end of everything I know	490	49.94
7. Death is simply a part of the life process	889	90.62

Variable	n	Mean	Standard deviation	p-value*
Acceptance attitudes as an approach
Gender				0.019
Female	743	36.92	12.56
Male	238	34.68	12.85
Marital status				0.039
Single	383	35.83	11.92
Married/Stable union	546	37.09	11.47
Divorced	46	33.85	15.49
Widow/Widower	04	27	13.95
Practice or belief in a religion				0.000
Yes	747	39.11	10.44
No	228	27.53	12.14
Fear attitudes
Marital status				0.000
Single	383	27.41	8.58
Married/Stable union	546	28.59	8.33
Divorced	46	23.80	8.37
Widow/Widower	04	22.25	6.75
Specialty				0.0009
Medical-Surgical Nursing	80	27.54	9.12
Child Health Nursing	04	28.25	12.09
Community Nursing	26	31.54	7.67
Rehabilitation Nursing	105	26.99	8.34
Mental Health Nursing	22	23.59	7.54
Maternal Health Nursing	03	31.67	8.14
Practice or belief in a religion				0.000
Yes	747	28.57	8.32
No	228	25.56	8.76
Acceptance/Neutrality attitudes
Marital status	0.011
Single	383	27.22	3.87
Married/Stable union	546	27.10	3.90
Divorced	46	29.04	3.81
Widow/Widower	04	29.00	4.08
Position held ‡				0.017
Nurse	704	27.05	3.87
Nurse with specialization	244	27.54	3.90
Head Nurse	20	28.90	4.88
Registered nurse in duties of	8	30.13	3.64	0.041
Age
Under 25 years old	35	27.66	3.09
26-35 years old	445	26.81	3.85
36-45 years old	335	27.52	3.88
46-55 years old	126	27.90	3.84
Over 55 years old	40	27.23	5.21
Service time				0.016
Up to 10 years	358	26.87	3.80
11-20 years	398	27.24	3.87
21-30 years	178	27.72	3.88
31-40 years	46	28.28	4.90
Over 40 years	1	26	-
Avoidance attitudes
Practice or belief in a religion				0.002
Yes	747	17.96	7.15
No	228	16	7.05
Acceptance attitudes as an escape
Type of employment relationship †				0.000
Public service employment contract	366	16.60	16.43
Permanent employment contract	511	15.10	6.13
Individual fixed-term or uncertain employment contract	99	14.10	5.57
Age				0.0001
Under 25 years old	35	14.46	5.94
26-35 years	445	14.84	5.94
36-45 years	335	15.79	6.23
46-55 years	126	16.83	6.80
Over 55 years	40	18.15	6.67
Service time				0.009
Up to 10 years	358	14.96	5.80
11-20 years	398	15.41	6.27
21-30 years	178	16.40	6.76
31-40 years	46	17.93	6.34
Over 40 years	1	8	-
With children
Yes	538	15.80	6.34	0.046
No	432	15.14	6.12

Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Programa de Pós Graduação em Enfermagem Campus Universitário Trindade, 88040-970 Florianópolis - Santa Catarina - Brasil, Tel.: (55 48) 3721-4915 / (55 48) 3721-9043 - Florianópolis - SC - Brazil
E-mail: textoecontexto@contato.ufsc.br

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[1] CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Maria Filomena Passos Texeira Cardoso ptcardoso@gmail.com