The effect of professional education on medical and nursing students' attitudes toward death

Attitudes and Experiences Towards Death of Healthcare Professionals Working in Neonatal Intensive Care Units

BACKGROUND

Death is an integral part of neonatal intensive care units' (NICUs) environment and little it is known about NICU's staff death concepts.

AIM

To investigate attitudes and experiences towards death of healthcare professionals (HPs) working in NICUs.

DESIGN

Totally 131 participants from six hospitals were included in the study. Research instruments were a questionnaire designed by the authors and the scale Death Attitude Profile-Revised.

RESULTS

Gender, marital and educational status, frequent contact with end of life neonates and provision of neonatal end of life care during the research period correlated significantly with dimensions of DAP-R. Impact of NICU neonatal deaths on personal life correlated negatively with fear of death and positively with escape acceptance.

CONCLUSION

Evaluating the interrelationships among personal characteristics, attitudes and experiences towards death among NICU HPs may increase our understanding concerning working with dying neonates and provide direction for educational intervention and continuing professional support.

Effects of a death education based on narrative pedagogy in a palliative care course among Chinese nursing students

Background

Death education has been confirmed to be an effective method to enhance nursing students' attitudes and coping abilities toward death. However, integrated Narrative Pedagogy into the death education to explore educational effectiveness is still limited. The study aimed to evaluate the effects of a death education based on Narrative Pedagogy in a palliative care course on the attitude toward death, coping with death, and attitude toward caring for the dying among undergraduate nursing students in China.

Methods

The study was designed as a pre-post intervention study with a quasi-experimental design. All the participants received 6 class hours of death education which was designed in a palliative care course. The death education includes preparation, presentation, discussion, reflection, and practice of the narrative materials. Death Attitude Profile-Revised (DAP-R), Coping with Death Scale (CDS), and Frommelt Attitude Toward Care of the Dying-Form B (FATCOD-Form B) were used to measure outcomes.

Results

Sixty undergraduate nursing students who consented. There were statistically significant increases in the mean score of neutral acceptance and approach acceptance in the DAP-R, CDS, and FATCOD-Form B before and after the intervention.

Conclusion

This death education integrated Narrative Pedagogy which indicated to improve attitude toward death, competence to cope with death, and attitude toward the care of dying patients. The findings assist teachers in understanding the importance and urgency of death education, as well as providing a favorable approach to death education. However, the long-term effectiveness still needs to study in further.

Nursing Students' Spiritual/Religious Coping Strategies Dealing With First Experience of Witnessing Death During Clinical Practices

This study aims at determining spiritual/religious coping strategies of nursing students dealing with the first experience of witnessing death during clinical practices. One of the qualitative research approaches, a descriptive phenomenological study was designed. The study was carried out with 14 nursing students studying at a state university in Turkey. The students' first experiences of witnessing death were examined by the personal in-depth interviewing method. Data were analyzed using the thematic analysis method. The following five main themes were identified by the analysis: Perception of death; Witnessing death for the first time; Coping with death experience; Needs and recommendations; Impact of spirituality and religion. The obtained findings were presented according to the COREQ criteria. The findings showed that witnessing death for the first time is a difficult experience that affects students in various ways and students prayed and performed their prayers frequently to cope with the death experience.

Bereavement and Professional Competencies: Exploring the Personal Experience of Death Among Nursing Students - A Qualitative Study

Purpose: To explore the death experiences of nursing students in their personal lives. Methods: This study employed a qualitative descriptive design using the semi-structured interview approach. A purposive sampling method was used to recruit 24 nursing students from September 2020 to July 2022. Data were analyzed using Colaizzi's analysis method. Lincoln and Guba's criteria was used to evaluate the trustworthiness of the data. Results: Four main themes emerged from the interviews: (a) reactions to encounters with death; (b) adjustment strategies; (c) personal growth induced by the death experiences; and (d) professional reflections for preparing nurse role. Conclusions: Although the death of a loved one makes nursing students suffer from grief and emotional distress, we show that the experience promotes the personal growth and professional competencies of nursing students and thereby, developing their overall aptitude towards the profession. Death experiences of nursing students have shown to allow them to reflect on both life and death, to consider the demands of the nursing profession, and to provide foundation for nursing students to be more empathetic and compassionate when facing death in the future. Exploring death experiences of nursing students is vital in better providing better quality education and personal support for nursing students.

What Intern Nursing Students in Turkey Think About Death and End-of-Life Care? A Qualitative Exploration

This descriptive qualitative study was planned to determine the views of intern nursing students about death and end-of-life care. The study was completed with 12 intern students based on the criterion of data saturation. As a result of the study, the categories of 'end,' 'uncertainty,' 'fear,' 'beginning,' 'helplessness' under the theme of death, 'ensuring peace,' 'continuing communication' 'providing psychosocial/spiritual support,' 'acting in conformity with principles of ethics/morality,' 'continuing to provide physical care,' 'supporting the family,' 'making the best use of the limited remaining time or helping the patient's last wishes come true' under the theme of end-of-life care emerged.

Psychology Students' Perceptions of COVID-19 in a Death Education Course

The systematic removal of death from social life in the West has exposed people living in areas affected by COVID-19 to the risk of being unable to adequately manage the anxiety caused by mortality salience. Death education is a type of intervention that helps people manage their fear of death by offering them effective strategies to deal with loss and anxiety. To that end, a path of death education has been carried out with University students of psychology. The main purpose of the research is to understand how students who participated in the death education course perceive the lockdown experience in light of course teachings. The research was carried out at a University in northern Italy in an area severely affected by COVID-19, during the first year of the pandemic. The group of participants included 38 students, 30 women and 8 men, with an average age of 25.45 years (SD = 7). At the end of the course, the students could respond on an optional basis to the request to comment on the training experience according to what they experienced during the pandemic. A thematic analysis was subsequently carried out on the texts, which made it possible to identify the most relevant thematic areas for the students. The qualitative analyses permitted recognition of three main forms of discovery: the removal of death in contemporary culture; the importance of community, ritual and funeral, and spirituality; and the significance of death education for future health professionals. The texts have highlighted how the removal of these issues exposes people to the risk of being unable to handle extremely painful events such as those related to dying. The results show the positivity of death education pathways conducted at the University level to help students reflect on these issues and manage the related anguish.