The Contribution of Death-Related Experiences to Health Care Providers' Attitudes toward Dying Patients: I. Graduate and Undergraduate Nursing Students

Abstract

This is the first in a series of studies planned by the authors concerned with the contribution of different death-related experiences to health care providers' attitudes toward caring for dying patients. This study investigated the contributions of personal, professional, and educational experience to the aversive and attractive components of those attitudes among 420 undergraduate and graduate students at six university-based nursing schools. The results showed that aversiveness decreased, attractiveness increased, and overall attitude became more positive, as the number, extent, and specificity of a student's death-related experiences increased. However, the different types of experience differed in the degree to which they affected each component: aversiveness was most affected by professional experience, attractiveness by personal experience. Educational experience made a small but significant contribution to both. The psychological assumptions and the measurement model underlying the development of the questionnaire and the interpretation of the data are presented. The implications of these results for future professional education are discussed.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Benoliel

J. Q.

, Health Care Providers and Dying Patients: Critical Issues in Terminal Care, Omega, 18:4, pp. 341–363, 1987–1988.

Degner

F. D.

and Gow

C. M.

, Evaluations of Death Education in Nursing: A Critical Review, Cancer Nursing, 11, pp. 151–159, 1988.

Kastenbaum

, Theory, Research and Applications: Some Critical Issues for Thanatology, Omega, 18, pp. 397–410, 1987–1988.

Hare

and Pratt

C. C.

, Nurses' Fear of Death and Comfort Level with Dying Patients, Death Studies, 13, pp. 349–360, 1989.

Hayslip

Jr. , The Measurement of Communication Apprehension Regarding the Terminally Ill, Omega, 17, pp. 251–261, 1986–1987.

Jinadu

M. K.

and Adedivan

S. O.

, Effects of Nursing Education on Attitudes of Nursing Students toward Dying Patients in the Nigerian Sociocultural Environment, International Journal of Nursing Studies, 19:1, pp. 21–27, 1982.

Gates

M. F.

, Care and Cure Persons Who Are Dying in Hospital and Hospice Settings, in Culture Care Diversity and Universality: A Theory of Nursing, Leininger

(ed.), NLM, New York, 1991.

Kastenbaum

and Aisenberg

, The Psychology of Death, Springer, New York, 1972.

Caty

and Tamlyn

, Positive Effects of Education on Nursing Students' Attitudes toward Death and Dying, Nursing Papers, 16, pp. 41–53, 1983.

10.

Lev

E. L.

, Effects of Course in Hospice Nursing: Attitudes and Behaviors of Baccalaureate School of Nursing Undergraduates and Graduates, Psychological Reports, 59, pp. 847–858, 1986.

11.

Yeaworth

Kapp

F. T.

, and Winget

, Attitudes of Nursing Students toward Dying Patients, Nursing Research, 23, pp. 20–24, 1974.

12.

Martin

L. B.

and Collier

P. A.

, Attitudes toward Death: A Survey of Nursing Students, Journal of Nursing Education, 14, pp. 28–35, 1975.

13.

Degner

F. D.

and Gow

C. M.

, Preparing Nurses for Care of the Dying: A Longitudinal Study, Cancer Nursing, 11, pp. 160–169, 1988.

14.

Lockard

B. E.

, Immediate, Residual and Long-Term Effects of a Death Education Instructional Unit on the Death Anxiety of Nursing Students, Death Studies, 13, pp. 137–159, 1989.

15.

Mitford

, The American Way of Death, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1963.

16.

Mood

and Lakin

C. F.

, Attitudes of Nursing Personnel toward Death and Dying: I. Linguistic Indicators of Avoidance, Research in Nursing and Health, 2, pp. 53–60, 1984.

17.

Mood

and Lick

C. F.

, Attitudes of Nursing Personnel toward Death and Dying: II. Linguistic Indicators of Denial, Research in Nursing and Health, 2, pp. 95–99, 1984.

18.

Gates

M. F.

Kaul

Speece

M. W.

Brent

S. B.

, and Mood

, Nursing and Medical Students' Attitudes toward the Care of Dying Patients, Hospice Journal in press, Based on a paper of the same title originally presented at the 1990 Annual Meeting of the National Hospice Association, Detroit, 1990.

19.

Benoliel

J. Q.

, Talking to Patients about Death, Nursing Forum, 9, pp. 254–268, 1970.

20.

Benoliel

J. Q.

, Nurses and the Human Experience of Dying, in New Meanings of Death, Feifel

(ed.), McGraw-Hill, New York, 1977.

21.

Quint

J. C.

, The Nurse and the Dying Patient, Macmillan, New York, 1967.

22.

Steven

and Bailey

, Sources of Stress and Satisfaction in ICU Nursing, Nursing, 6:6, pp. 26–32, 1979.

23.

Moser

D. H.

and Krikorian

D. A.

, Satisfaction and Stress Incidents Reported by Hospice Nurses: A Pilot Study, Nursing Leadership, 5:4, pp. 9–17, 1982.