Nurses are frequently exposed to dying patients and death in the course of their work. This experience makes individuals conscious of their own mortality, often giving rise to anxiety and unease. Nurses who have a strong anxiety about death may be less comfortable providing nursing care for patients at the end of their life. This paper explores the literature on death anxiety and nurses’ attitudes to determine whether fear of death impacts on nurses’ caring for dying patients. Fifteen quantitative studies published between 1990 and 2012 exploring nurses’ own attitudes towards death were critically reviewed. Three key themes identified were: i). nurses’ level of death anxiety; ii). death anxiety and attitudes towards caring for the dying, and iii). death education was necessary for such emotional work. Based on quantitative surveys using valid instruments, results suggested that the level of death anxiety of nurses working in hospitals in general, oncology, renal, hospice care or in community services was not high. Some studies showed an inverse association between nurses’ attitude towards death and their attitude towards caring for dying patients. Younger nurses consistently reported stronger fear of death and more negative attitudes towards end-of-life patient care. Nurses need to be aware of their own beliefs. Studies from several countries showed that a worksite death education program could reduce death anxiety. This offers potential for improving nurses’ caring for patients at the end of their life.
This purpose of the study was to construct a model (theory) to understand Chinese women’s adjustment process in living with breast cancer. A constructivist grounded theory method was adopted in this study. A total of 24 women were recruited through purposive and theoretical sampling. Semi-structured, audio-recorded interviews were undertaken in Chinese and transcribed. Initial coding, focused coding, and theoretical coding approaches were used to identify subcategories and categories, and to construct the emergent theory. The basic social process these women used to deal with the breast cancer diagnosis was identified as: Emerging from the ‘ku’: Fluctuating in adjusting with breast cancer. Four categories were revealed following analysis: confronting challenges, orienting to reality, accommodating the illness, and transforming their lives, which encapsulated the main cognitive and emotional processes in which Chinese women engaged in their adjustment to living with their illness. The core process was influenced by a variety of contextual influences, which were identified as personal factors, social-environmental factors, and some specific cultural factors which emphasized positive changes. Chinese cultural values such as “Wuwei” coping strategies, familial primacy, and Chinese self-disclosure contribute to Chinese women’s adjustment processes and post-traumatic growth experiences. Hence, there is a need to consider Chinese cultural features, in designing culturally tailored supportive programs in multi-cultural clinical settings.
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