DEVELOPMENT OF ADMINISTRATIVE CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE PLACEMENT OF STAFF NURSES IN REFERENCE TO DEATH AND THE DYING PATIENT

The purpose of this study was to develop a set of considerations that administrators could use in placing nurses who dealt with dying patients. An attempt was made to determine whether nurses who reflected certain personal backgrounds would have an attitude about death and the dying patient that would subsequently predispose them to giving inadequate nursing care to these patients. To determine which items needed to be considered by nursing administrators in the placement of staff nurses, a questionnaire was completed by 248 senior medical-surgical nursing students at five college campuses in three counties in the State of Florida. It was shown that there was a significant relationship between the student nurses' attitudes toward death and dying (increased fear), their anticipated response patterns to death-related situations in the hospital work setting (inadequate care) and the thirteen background variables. More specifically, those student nurses with an increased fear of death and dying were more inclined to give inadequate care to the dying patient. Those student nurses with specific background characteristics were also more apt to give inadequate nursing care to their patients in such situations that dealt with suicide, abortion, euthansia or death in general.