EFFECTS OF COURSE IN HOSPICE NURSING ON ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIORS OF BSN STUDENTS AND GRADUATES TOWARD DEATH AND DYING PATIENTS (ONCOLOGY, CURRICULUM).
Contributors: Columbia University. Teachers College.
Published: 1986
Number of pages: 164
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: The study is a longitudinal quasi-experimental study of two groups of baccalaureate school of nursing students and graduates in which attitudes and behaviors were investigated as they might have been affected by an elective course in hospice nursing. The attitudinal component, focusing on fears of death and dying, was measured by the Colett-Lester Fear of Death Scale. The behavioral component, focusing on self-reported avoidance behaviors towards groups seen by society to be of low social worth, was measured by the Social Distance Scale. Students and graduates who completed the hospice nursing course from 1980-1985 were compared with students and graduates at another school who said they would elect to enroll in the course if it were offered. The difference between the two groups was the education in hospice nursing which was given only to the experimental group. Pretest, posttest and delayed posttest scores of experimental (n = 45) and control groups (n = 81) were compared.

The study demonstrated that experience alone was not sufficient in changing attitudes and behaviors of nursing students and graduates. The study demonstrated that maintaining a social distance or avoiding groups such as the dying, alcoholic, psychiatric and AIDS patients was a very real occurrence. Results demonstrated significantly less (p < .001) fear of death and dying in the experimental group delayed posttest scores of the Colett-Lester Fear of Death Scale and significantly fewer (p < .05) avoidance behaviors toward dying patients, alcoholics, psychiatric patients and AIDS patients. Sixty-six percent of subjects in the experimental group delayed posttest reported that they would choose to work in oncology; thirty percent of subjects in the control group delayed posttest reported that they would choose to work in oncology.

Study findings indicated that the elective course in hospice nursing was an effective teaching strategy for decreasing subjects' attitudes of fear toward death and dying and avoidance behaviors toward the dying, alcoholic, psychiatric and AIDS patients. The findings supported the theoretical framework that education can produce shifts in attitudes and behaviors. Further investigation of elective courses in nursing education is indicated.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 47-06, Section: B, page: 2374.

Thesis (ED.D.)--COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY TEACHERS COLLEGE, 1986.

School code: 0055.