Attitude towards Euthanasia in Relation to Death Anxiety among a Sample of 343 Nurses in India

Scores on Attitude towards Euthanasia were correlated with scores on Death Anxiety among 343 female nurses in India using Templer's Death Anxiety Scale and the authors' 24-item attitude scale. No significant correlation was found between the two sets of scores ( r = −.09) or a nonlinear score on relation. Age of nurses was not significantly related to Attitude towards Euthanasia ( r = .07) or Death Anxiety ( r = .11). As measured, death anxiety has no bearing on attitude about euthanasia.

Relationships between personal attitudes about death and communication with terminally ill patients: How oncology clinicians grapple with mortality

OBJECTIVE

Clinician discomfort with death may affect care of patients but has not been well-studied. This study explores oncology clinicians' attitudes surrounding their own death and how these attitudes both affect and are affected by their care of dying patients and their communication with them.

METHODS

Qualitative interviews with physicians (n=25), nurse practitioners (n=7), and physician assistants (n=1) in medical or hematologic oncology clinical practices about communication styles, care of terminally ill patients, and personal perspectives about mortality.

RESULTS

Clinicians described three communication styles used with patients about death and dying: direct, indirect, or selectively direct. Most reported an acceptance of their mortality that was "conditional," meaning that that they could not fully know how they would respond if actually terminally ill. For many clinicians, caring for dying patients affected their outlook on life and death, and their own perspectives on life and death affected their approach to caring for dying patients.

CONCLUSION

An awareness of personal mortality may help clinicians to discuss death more openly with patients and to provide better care.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS

Efforts to promote self-awareness and communication training are key to facilitating clear communication with and compassionate care of terminally ill patients.

Psychiatrists׳ fear of death is associated with negative emotions toward borderline personality disorder patients

This study examines the relationship between psychiatrists׳ fear of death and negative emotions toward patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD). A survey (N=120) demonstrated that fear of death is associated with stronger negative attitudes toward BPD patients, after controlling for attitudes toward suicide. Our findings emphasize the importance of psychiatrists׳ awareness to their fear of death as a relevant factor for their emotions toward BPD patients.

[Professions and fear of death--are they correlated?]

INTRODUCTION

There are relatively few data on the relationship between professions and fear of death.

AIM

The aim of the authors was to examine the association between profession and fear of death.

METHOD

Physicians, medical students and other healthcare workers, priests, psychologists and non-healthcare workers (N = 1062) were asked about their attitude to death by means of the Multidimensional Fear of Death Scale.

RESULTS

Significant differences were found in the total and some factor scores among the study groups. Priests showed the lowest fear of death values. Scores on the Fear of the Dead Factor was the highest in psychologists and non-healthcare workers who had no contact with the dead and dying.

CONCLUSIONS

Fear of death seems rather to be present in professions dealing less directly with the dead and dying.

Death distress among two samples of lower and higher stress in health care professionals

A convenience sample of 195 volunteer nurses working in different medical departments was recruited (77 Kuwaiti, 118 non-Kuwaiti from 10 countries; 55 men, 140 women; ages 25 to 51 years). Participants responded in English to the Arabic Scale of Death Anxiety, the Death Depression Scale, the Death Obsession Scale, and the Reasons for Death Fear Scale. Pearson correlations between the four scales were statistically significant and positive. The only significant sex difference was on the Death Depression Scale with men reporting more stress. It was also found that nurses dealing with critical cases and working in higher stress departments (Intensive Care Unit and Heart Department) obtained higher mean scores on the Death Depression Scale, Death Obsession Scale, and Reasons for Death Fear Scale than their counterparts working in lower stress departments such as internal medicine. It was concluded that working in higher stress nursing departments affected death distress. Nurses with high scores on death distress may benefit from a thanatopsis program. There is reason to believe that this may ameliorate relations with patients.

Death-talks: transformative learning for physicians

Conversations between physicians and their patients concerning terminal conditions are undoubtedly an uneasy process. These conversations are referred in this article as death-talks. Death-talks are social engagements among meaning-making human beings, and such encounters comprise complex grief dynamics as well as opportunities for personal insight. Towards preparing for and improving upon such sensitive and crucial talks, physicians must become growingly informed of their own existential standpoints in order to exude a more authentic presence. Transformative Learning is a theory of adult learning offering a rationale for physicians to exercise critically reflexive learning towards formulating a more meaningful medical and human care for those who are dying and their grieving relations.

The physician's disease: The impact of medical knowledge on personal illness

Objective: When physicians confront a personal illness of a serious nature, they may discover that the transition to the sick role is challenging, and the inability to relinquish their stethoscope may cause undo anxiety. The physician–patient relationship is intrinsically asymmetrical, and the role of the physician is to regulate the amount of information patients need in order to become educated about their illness and to make informed decisions about their treatment plan. This article explores the challenges in the physician–patient relationship when the patient is also a physician.

Methods: This article is a literature review of publications involving the unique challenges physician–patients experience when suffering from serious personal illness.

Results: The medical knowledge physician–patients harbor has the potential to complicate their ability to cope with difficult or terminal diagnoses. Paradoxically, knowledge about a condition may fuel anxiety instead of alleviating the fear associated with the unknown. Medical knowledge therefore may entail a certain loss of innocence, and physicians are often unable to revert to being “mere” patients. Furthermore, managing this anxiety in physician–patients may prove to be challenging to the treating physician.

Significance of results: From a medical perspective, physician–patients need to be addressed like any other patient. Psychologically, however, these patients are unique, and the specific challenges their education and experience bring into the consultation room needs to be explicitly addressed.

Psychological research on death attitudes: an overview and evaluation

One of the most substantial legacies of Herman Feifel was his pioneering research on attitudes toward death and dying in a variety of populations. The authors review the large and multifaceted literature on death anxiety, fear, threat and acceptance, focusing on the attitudes toward death and dying of relevant professional and patient groups, and the relationship of death concern to aging, physical and mental health, religiosity, and terror management strategies. We conclude with several recommendations for improving the conceptual and practical yield of future work in this area.