title: [Anxiety of nursing staff in the face of death in critical care units and its relationship with the patients' age].
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Death is a biological and psychosocial process, in which many of the vital events extinguish in a gradual and silent sequence, this escaping simple observation. People live with the fear of death, however health care professionals are constantly faced with the death of other people and in continuous contact with this. This may negatively or positively affect their attitudes.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To assess anxiety levels of the intensive care unit nurses in the face of death.
  
  
  METHODS
  This is an observational, descriptive cross-sectional study conduced in the Pediatric and Adult Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the University Hospital General Gregorio Marañón. A Death Anxiety Inventory (DAI) was used for the assessment of anxiety in the presence of death.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The response rate was 86.9%. Mean age of participants was 38±9.25 years (range, 22-63). Mean working experience was 13±7.2 years (range, 35 years-7 months). The item having the highest level of anxiety was number 14-"I would like to live to an advanced age" (n=113; mean, 3.35±1.2). Statistically significant correlations (p=0.01) were found in the levels of anxiety between nurses of pediatric ICU and adult ICU in factor 1-"External generators of anxiety", this being higher in the pediatric ICU. A total of 77% of the professionals consider they are trained for the subject of death compared to 18.6% who do not.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The ICU professionals who attend to children have higher levels of anxiety and of considering that they are not trained for this than those attending adults.
authors: Diplomada de Enfermería, Master de Enfermería en Cuidados Críticos Universidad Rey Juan Carlos de Madrid, Supervisora de Urgencia Infantil Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón, Madrid, Spain. cpf05@telefonica.net
authors: M C
authors: MC
authors: Pascual Fernández
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001007:Anxiety / Q000453:epidemiology*; D003422:Critical Care; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003643:Death; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007362:Intensive Care Units; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009740:Nursing Staff; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult