title: Emergency and palliative care nurses' levels of anxiety about death and coping with death: a questionnaire survey.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Caring for dying patients and their families presents many challenges, and may be negatively affected by nurses' Fear of Death. This study investigates attitudes of emergency and palliative care nurses towards death and dying.
  
  
  METHODS
  A mixed methods design including questionnaire and interview, was utilised. This paper reports questionnaire results from the Death Attitude Profile-Revised Scale and coping skills.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Twenty-eight emergency nurses and 28 palliative care nurses from two health services participated. Nurses held low to moderate Fear of Death (44%), Death Avoidance (34%), Escape Acceptance (47%) and Approach Acceptance (59%). Emergency nurses reported higher death avoidance and, significantly lower coping skills than palliative care nurses. Both reported high acceptance of the reality of death (Neutral Acceptance 82%), and indicated they coped better with a patient who was dying than with, the patient's family.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Nurses generally held positive attitudes towards death and dying. Participants could cope with caring for dying patients, but were significantly less comfortable coping with patients' family members. Nurses should be aware of the impact their attitude towards death may have on providing supportive nursing care for the dying.
authors.affiliation: Monash University, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Melbourne, Vic., Australia. Electronic address: louise.peters@monash.edu.
authors.forename: Louise
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Peters
authors.forename: Robyn
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Cant
authors.forename: Sheila
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Payne
authors.forename: Margaret
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: O'Connor
authors.forename: Fiona
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: McDermott
authors.forename: Kerry
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hood
authors.forename: Julia
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Morphet
authors.forename: Kaori
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Shimoinaba
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D001007:Anxiety / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D001293:Attitude to Death; D001315:Australia / Q000453:epidemiology; D002983:Clinical Competence; D016529:Emergency Nursing; D005260:Female; D064946:Hospice and Palliative Care Nursing; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009726:Nurses / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011368:Professional-Family Relations; D011594:Psychometrics; D036301:Qualitative Research; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
keywords: Attitude to death; Death; Emergency nursing; Palliative care nursing