Descriptive study on nurses' coping with the death of a pediatric patient

Abstract

Introduction

According to several studies, nurses feel that they are not prepared to face the death of a patient, especially when the patient is paediatric.

Objective

To describe the level of coping of nurses in various departments of a paediatric monographic hospital when faced with the death of a patient.

Methods

A quantitative, descriptive, cross-sectional, observational, case series study was carried out from February to April 2024 with nurses from the paediatric palliative care, the paediatric intensive care unit and the paediatric oncohematology unit of a monographic paediatric hospital in the Community of Madrid. Several sociodemographic variables were determined and the Bugen Death Coping Scale was used as the main instrument, followed by a descriptive analysis of the data.

Results

In the present study, 69% had neutral coping with death, 19 % had optimal coping and 11.9% had inadequate coping. It has been observed that nurses who work in paediatric palliative care, have a fixed shift, have suffered the death of a family member in the last three years and have previous training, have a better coping with death. Likewise, it could be seen that older age and greater work experience, male sex and having children may be factors that favor optimal coping in the face of death.

Conclusions

Knowing these data helps to establish strategies for improvement, since it has been seen that greater preparation of professionals decreases anxiety in the face of death and improves patient care.