The Effects of Patients Death on Nurses

The Effects of Patients Death on Nurses

Introduction

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the various effects of patient’s deaths on nurses. As members and individuals of health caring profession, nurses play a pivotal role in the care of the dying patients (Grandey, 2015). It is therefore significant to explore dying and death extensively from the viewpoint of individuals who care for the dying patients in order to make use of their experiences on the ground of deeper understanding of the entire process. Kondo and Nagata (2015) argued that nurses are mostly exposed to deaths and dying patients in the course of their duties. The experience that nurses gain while caring for the dying makes them to be very conscious of their own mortality and consequently leading to unease and anxiety (Miles, 2017). Individual nurses with strong anxiety concerning deaths may end up being less comfortable in their provision of nursing care for dying patients.

Background of the Problem

The death of patients as well as caring for them throughout their dying process may be very stressful and challenging for the nurses. Kondo and Nagata (2015) argued that handling deaths and dying processes may lead to death anxiety, fatigue, compassion the feeling of grief among the nursing fraternity. Nurses experience moral suffering or emotional stress especially when responsibilities at the workplace or institutional barriers restrict them from acting in accordance with their own moral of judgment. Miles (2017) maintains that witnessing an individual undergoing the trauma, pain and suffering which may be related to dying can trigger anxiety among nurses. Recurrent experience of dying processes and deaths of patients may remind nurses of their own mortality and hence evoking fear (Kondo & Nagata, 2015).

Anxiety related to deaths is common phenomenon that revolves around the life of nurses who deal with patients with injuries or life-limiting diseases. The death anxiety phenomenon is complex and constitutes meditating about an individuals’ fear of death as well as the fear about the process of dying. Since deaths are inevitable, nurses have to find a convenient way of dealing with their anxieties concerning deaths and hence cope up with the recurrent deaths of the patients. Kondo and Nagata (2015) argued that anxieties related to deaths may cause both positive and negative effect on a nurse, depending on various aspects. Grandey (2015) argued that the death of patients may lead to feelings of self-awareness and hence assist nurses on their own purpose of life. On the contrary, death anxieties may lead to adverse effects in the mental aspects of a nurse. According to Grandey (2015) and Miles (2017), the quality of caring attitude and handling patients’ deaths may be distorted by the death anxieties. The anxiety may even worsen after the death of a patient and it may distort the grief responses and the capability of a nurse to cope and effectively manage events of deaths in the future.

Statement of the Problem

Minimal information is known concerning the personal experiences, behaviors and feelings of nurses when it comes to caring of the dying patients. This has made nurses vulnerable to various effects such as anxiety, fear and metal problems (Kondo & Nagata, 2015). It is therefore necessary to acquire the knowledge of the patients’ deaths, understanding of nurses’ experience and how they are affected. This significant piece of information needs to be acquired by self-report by letting nurse to describe their personal experience in handling patients’ deaths (Kondo & Nagata, 2015). If sufficient knowledge has been acquired concerning the experiences of the nurses in caring for the dying, a valid base may be may be developed for the nursing research, greater service and improved patient care in a community. The study will thus collect sufficient information from nurses by acquiring their own experimental description of the situations (Miles, 2017). The result will then be analyzed to help in understanding the unknown effects of dying patients on nurses.

Purpose of the Study

            The main purpose of this study is to investigate, analyze and provide sufficient information on various effects of death of patients on nurses.  The study will help in providing vital information that may used by health care organizations in coming up with strategies and recommendation that aim at mitigating the effects of patients’ deaths on nurses (Wilson & Kirshbaum, 2018). This will help in ensuring that better measures for coping up with deaths are put in place to ensure that despites of any anxiety, nurses can still offer quality services (Grandey, 2015). The result of the research will then be use to come up with various intervention of boosting patients care and quality of the service.

Theoretical Framework

The study will make use of Quality of Life (QOL) theoretical framework to understand how nurses handle patients’ deaths as well as the social and psychological problems that they face when handling the deaths of patients (Grandey, 2015). The framework is a multi-dimensional concept that consists of psychological, physical as well as spiritual functionalities of an individual. Individual who have fatal illness are mostly associated with various stressors that may have adverse effects on their health. Having a comprehensive understanding of an individual’s quality of life may assist nurses to come up with suitable care that may help in meeting specific needs of such individuals.

Grandey (2015) and Miles (2017) argued that quality of life framework vary from individual to individual such that a condition that affects a psychological dimension of a person may not have the same effects on the other person. Miles (2017) argued that only an individual nurse may determine the aspects of their psychology that may be affected by patient’s deaths. Nurses mostly experience things that may cause problems or stressors to their lives. Such problems therefore need to be address to help in enhancing their quality of service delivery to patients (Kondo & Nagata, 2015). It should never be assumed that frequent interaction of nurses with patient’s deaths is part of their daily life and career. Such interactions have a lot of effects o their lives and hence needs to be addressed effectively.

Research Question

To comprehensive identify and analyze the effects of patient’s deaths on nurses, the following research questions will be addressed:

1. What are the major effects of patient’s death on nurses?
2. What is the interpretation of the shared meaning that nurses have on patients’ deaths?
3. How can the experience of nurses be described in relation to patients’ deaths?
4. How does patients’ death cause anxiety and fear among nurses?
5. What are some of the evidence from literature on how patients’ deaths affect psychological, emotional well-being of nurses?
6. What are some recommendations that health care organizations have put in place to provide support to nurses when handling patient’s deaths?
7. What are some of the coping strategies that might be used by nurses in handling patients’ deaths?

Nature of the Study

The study will incorporate a review of literature into how patients’ deaths affect nurses; both their working environment as well as their psychology. Furthermore, the study will employ various research methods such as surveys, face-to-face interviews and telephones interviews among others The results obtained from such interviews will then be analyzed and interpreted to determine the effects of patients’ deaths on nurses.

Definition of Terms

For the sake of this study:

• Patient is defines as an individual who has registered or is receiving medical treatment (Kondo & Nagata, 2015).
• Nurse is defines as an individual who has been trained to take care of the sick, especially in hospital (Webster’s Dictionary, 2018, p.1115).
• Emotional stress is defined as experiencing negative effects like anxiety in the context of psychological stress (Miles, 2017).
• Death is defined as the end of life of an individual (Webster’s Dictionary, 2018, p.585).

Chapter Summary

Nurses encounter patient deaths on a daily basis. The frequent encounters have associated effects on the psychology and working environment of the nurses. The effects of patients’ deaths on nurses will be studied majorly from a quantitative perspective and will be focused on the psychological effects, anxiety and fear that a nurse experiences while handling patients’ deaths. Furthermore, the research will employ various quantitative methods such as surveys and interviews to help in getting sufficient information that may be analyzed and interpreted to get the desired solutions for the research problem. Moreover, the research will employ the Quality of Life (QOL) theoretical framework to understand how nurses handle patients’ deaths as well as the social and psychological problems that they face when handling the deaths.

 

 

References

Grandey, A. A. (2015). Emotional regulation in the workplace: A new way to conceptualize emotional labor. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 5, 95–110. doi:10.1037/1076–8998.5.1.95

Kondo, M., & Nagata, H. (2015). Nurses’ involvement in patients’ dying and death. OMEGA – Journal Of Death And Dying, 70(3), 278-300. https://doi.org/10.1177/0030222815568959

Miles, M. (2017). The effects of a course on death and grief on nurses’ attitudes toward dying patients and death. Death Education, 4(3), 245-260. https://doi.org/10.1080/07481188008252974

Websters Dictionary of the English language (2018). Encyclopaedic edition (unabridged). Chicago: J. G. Ferguson.

Wilson, J., & Kirshbaum, M. (2018). Effects of patient death on nursing staff: a literature review. British Journal of Nursing, 20(9), 559-563. https://doi.org/10.12968/bjon.2011.20.9.559