Associations of Surrogate Decision-making Support with the Difficulties and Attitudes of Nurses Providing End-of-life Care in Emergency or Intensive Care Settings

Abstract

Objective: To clarify the relationship between nurses’ surrogate decision-making support and difficulties faced by and attitudes of end-of-life care in emergency or intensive care area of community medical support hospitals. Method: A survey was conducted using a self-administered questionnaire, and nurses in emergency or intensive care units responded anonymously to the questionnaire. Nursing practice of surrogate decision-making was assessed using a nursing practice scale for measuring support for surrogate decision-makers of terminal care. Difficulties of nurses providing end-of-life-care were measured using the Scale for DFINE, and attitudes of nurses providing end-of life care were measured using The FATCOD-BJ. Results: Of the 120 respondents, 60 nurses practicing surrogate decision-making with more support were more likely to have clinical practice in emergency or intensive care units of over 6 years as compared to the remaining 60 nurses practicing surrogate decision-making with less support . The DFINE scores of nurses practicing surrogate decision-making with more support were significantly lower than those of nurses practicing surrogate decision-making with less support under Student’s t-test as well as under analyses of covariance adjusting. The FATCOD-BJ score of nurses practicing surrogate decision-making with more support was almost the same as the score of those of nurses practicing surrogate decision-making with less support under Student’s t-test as well as under analyses of covariance adjusting. Conclusion: The results suggested that nurses in emergency or intensive care units involved in surrogate decision-making with more support had less difficulty