Personal and Emotional Factors of Nursing Professionals Related to Coping with End-of-Life Care: A Cross-Sectional Study
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Povedano Jiménez, María; Ropero Padilla, Carmen; Rodriguez Arrastia, Miguel; García Caro, María PazEditorial
MDPI
Materia
Anxiety Clinical competence Cross-sectional study End-of-life care Nursing Psychological resilience
Date
2021Referencia bibliográfica
Povedano-Jiménez, M.; Ropero-Padilla, C.; RodriguezArrastia, M.; García-Caro, M.P. Personal and Emotional Factors of Nursing Professionals Related to Coping with End-of-Life Care: A Cross-Sectional Study. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18, 9515. https://doi.org/10.3390/ ijerph18189515
Abstract
The death of a patient can be a traumatic event, causing emotional and psychological
distress in professional nurses and potentially hampering the quality of their care. Optimal selfperceived coping with death involves valuing these difficult situations as challenges and actively
coping with work-related stress during the care of the dying patient. Thus, the aim of this study
was to assess Spanish nurses’ self-perceived competence with patient death and investigate its
relationship with their personality traits, anxiety and fear of death. A cross-sectional study based on
a web-based survey was conducted. A sample of 534 Spanish nurses provided socio-demographic
information and answered validated questionnaires. Most participants perceived their coping with
death as optimal. Men and nurses older than 31 years coped better with death. Professionals with an
optimal self-perception showed significantly lower scores on all personality dimensions evaluated,
while a higher level of the anxiety trait predicted worse coping. Although with medium explanatory
power, psychoticism, anxiety, and fear of death were the main predictors of the development of
optimal coping with death among Spanish nurses. These characteristics together with information
from the work environment and evidence-based practice could help to develop better routines and
contexts of care for nurses working in end-of-life care.