Attitudes of Nurses toward Caring for Dying Patients in Intensive Care Unit

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate actual conditions and factors that influenced the attitudes of nurses in intensive care unit (ICU) toward the management of terminal care. A self-report questionnaire was administered to nurses with minimum 1 year of clinical experience in ICU. The self-report questionnaire consisted of personal attributes and views on life and death using the Japanese version of the Frommelt attitudes toward care of the dying scale (FATCOD-B-J). Responses were obtained from 414 nurses and analyzed. The average score of the FATCOD-B-J of nurses in ICU was 113.3±11.1 points. The terminal care attitude of nurses in the ICU had positivism equal to that of nurses in the general ward with similar age and clinical experience. The views on life and death, which does not avoid thinking about death, finding significance in life and destination mission, often thinking about death, and experience in departments other than ICU influenced the terminal care attitude of nurses. Therefore, I speculate that qualitative factors, such as their age and years of experience, but not quantitative factors, influence the terminal care attitude of nurses in ICU.