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Effect of Terminal Patient Care Training on the Nurses’ Attitudes Toward Death in an Oncology Hospital in Turkey

Journal of Cancer Education volume 32, pages 65–71 (2017)Cite this article

Abstract

This is an experimental research aiming at identifying the effect of terminal patient care training on the nurses’ attitudes toward death. The sample of this study (n = 41) involves 20 nurses in the training group and 21 nurses in the control group. Nurses were offered terminal patient care training and their attitudes toward death were assessed before and after the intervention. The Death Attitude Profile-Revised (DAP-R) subscale mean scores for fear of death (3.9–4.6, p < .05) and approach acceptance (2.9–3.3, p < .05) were found to significantly increase at the end of training in the training group while mean scores in the control group displayed no significant change (p > .05) in any of the five DAP-R subscales. In accordance with these findings, this study suggests that terminal patient care training should be implemented in the nursing curriculum more extensively and should be frequently repeated as part of the nurses’ in-service education.

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Affiliations

  1. Department of Internal Diseases Nursing, Faculty of Health Sciences, Erciyes University, 38039, Kayseri, Turkey

    Songül Göriş, Sultan Taşcı, Özlem Ceyhan & Pınar Tekinsoy Kartın

  2. Department of Psychiatry Nursing, Faculty of Health Sciences, Yıldırım Beyazıt University, 38039, Ankara, Turkey

    Birgül Özkan

  3. Oncology Hospital, Erciyes University, 38039, Kayseri, Turkey

    Aliye Çeliksoy

  4. Department of Biostatistics, Faculty of Medicine, Erciyes University, 38039, Kayseri, Turkey

    Ferhan Elmalı

  5. Department of Oncology, Faculty of Medicine, Erciyes University, 38039, Kayseri, Turkey

    Bülent Eser

Authors
  1. Songül Göriş
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  2. Sultan Taşcı
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  3. Birgül Özkan
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  4. Özlem Ceyhan
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  5. Pınar Tekinsoy Kartın
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  6. Aliye Çeliksoy
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  7. Ferhan Elmalı
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  8. Bülent Eser
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Correspondence to Songül Göriş.

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The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Ethics Approval

In order to conduct the research, ethical approvals from Erciyes University the Clinical Research Ethical Board (2013/219) were obtained. After the nurses were informed about the aims of the study, they submitted their written consent statements declaring their voluntary participation in the study. This study was conducted in accordance with the ethical principles of the Declaration of Helsinki (revised October 2000).

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Göriş, S., Taşcı, S., Özkan, B. et al. Effect of Terminal Patient Care Training on the Nurses’ Attitudes Toward Death in an Oncology Hospital in Turkey. J Canc Educ 32, 65–71 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-015-0929-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-015-0929-6

Keywords

  • Death attitude
  • Terminally care
  • Cancer patients
  • Nursing