Nursing students--Attitudes

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.

This study analyzes the impact of a selected associate degree
nursing program upon the attitudes of students toward death. An
instrument, "Attitudes Towards Death," was developed for use in the
study and was administered to a randomly selected sample of 122 freshmen,
84 sophomore and 46 graduate nurses. Analysis of each group's
responses and comparisons among the group were made using several
statistical procedures. The results were as follows:
1. There were no significant differences in attitudes towards
death of beginning freshman associate degree nursing students, graduating
sophomore associate degree nursing students, and graduate associate
degree nurses working in nursing.
2. There were no significant differences between freshman and
sophomore nursing students in the following subscales: fear of death
of self, fear of death of others, fear of dying of others, general
attitude, and inconsistency of attitude. There was a significant difference on the fear of dying of self.
3. There were no significant differences between freshman
nursing students and graduate nurses on any of the six death attitude
subscales.
4. There were no significant differences between sophomore
nursing students and graduate nurses on any of the six death attitude
subscales. 5. Among the demographic variables the following chi-square
subscale correlations were significant: personal meaning that the
subject attached to the concept of death, and the fear of death of
self, fear of dying of self, general attitude, and inconsistency of
attitude; degree of religiosity and fear of death of self, fear of
dying of others, general attitude, and inconsistency of attitude;
desire to be told of a terminal illness and fear of death of self,
fear of dying of self, and fear of dying of others; amount of nursing
experience and inconsistency of attitude; marital status and fear of
death of others, and area of clinical specialization and fear of death
of others. The variables of age , income, and first personal involvement
with death had no significant chi-square subscale correlations.