The Effect of Guided Imagery on Death Anxiety, Empathy and Attitude towards Terminally Ill Patients in Oncology Nurses

Objective: Enabling oncology nurses to become aware of their own mortality is important to provide a dignity and quality end of life care. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of guided imagery on death anxiety, empathy and attitude towards terminally ill patients in oncology nurses. Guided imagery may be an effective tool to help nurses at the end of life care. Methods: This quasi-experimental research included 43 oncology nurses who were chosen using total population sampling method. The data was collected by using the nurse information form, the “Thorson-Powell Death Anxiety Scale”, the “Approach to Death and Dying Patients Attitude Scale”, the “Interpersonal Reactivity Index” Results: The nurses in the intervention and control groups were similar in terms of characteristics (P> .05). In intragroup comparison of the experimental group, it was determined that while both death anxiety and empathy levels increased, scores of avoiding terminally ill patients of nurses also decreased (P< .05). On the other hand, in the intergroup comparison, it did not affect death anxiety and attitude towards the terminally ill patients (P> .05); however, it was found that it increased empathy levels of nurses (P< .05). Conclusion: Guided Imagery may be an effective technique in oncology nurses to improve positive attitude towards the terminally ill patients and increase empathy level. Using guided imagery can facilitate clinical nursing practice by changing nurses’ perspective towards the nearing people end of life. However, further experimental research are needed to validate this study.