ANALYSIS OF NURSES' ATTITUDE CHANGE TOWARD DEATH AND DYING AS AFFECTED BY DEATH EDUCATION INTERVENTION.
Contributors: Drake University.
Published: 1992
Number of pages: 179
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Education, Health.; Education, Higher.
Description: The problem. The nurse is the health care giver with the highest degree of contact with dying persons and their families. Nurses' fear of death and dying may decrease with increased academic preparation. This study attempted to identify the effect of death education on nurses' attitudes toward death and dying. The results may aid in decisions about the necessity of having a specific death education course and/or an inservice education program for nurses.

Procedures. Subjects were 157 student nurses and 148 registered nurses randomly assigned to experimental and contrast groups. The experimental treatment was a two-day death education workshop and the contrast treatment was a two-day creativity innovation training workshop. The dependent variables were the Revised Collett-Lester Fear of Death Scale and the Templer Death Anxiety Scale. A 2 x 2 repeated measures design was used and measurement of the dependent variables included a pretest, posttest, and followup test.

Findings. There was a statistically significant (P $<$.05) improvement in attitudes toward death and dying as a result of the two-day death education workshop, and the differences were retained after a four-week period. There was no significant interaction between the status of subjects (student nurses vs. registered nurse) and group (experimental vs. contrast).

Conclusions. Providing terminal care is an inevitable nursing service in the nursing profession that is needed and wanted by society. A death education intervention to make a positive change in student nurses' and registered nurses' attitudes toward death and dying may improve humane, holistic care to dying persons in the inevitable human living experience.

Recommendation. Future research needs to examine the extent to which these findings can be generalized to other nursing education levels and to hospital settings other than in Chinese culture. A longitudinal study is needed to measure the impact of death education on attitudes over time.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-07, Section: B, page: 3398.

Thesis (ED.D.)--DRAKE UNIVERSITY, 1992.

School code: 0387.