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For Immediate Release
March 9, 2007
Mercy in Spotlight for International Study
Oklahoma City — Day in and day out, nurses care for
dying patients. It’s what they do. But an international study
spearheaded by Mercy Health Center reveals that across the globe, nurses
are experiencing lots of anxiety when it comes to caring for dying
patients.
The study—which represents 183 nurses from The Sir
Run Run Shaw Hospital in Hangzhou, China, and 151 nurses from Mercy
Health Center—found that 92 percent of the American nurses and 86
percent of the Chinese nurses are apprehensive when it comes to caring
for dying patients.
“This is the first time a study of this magnitude
has been conducted comparing nurses’ attitudes in China and the United
States concerning the care of dying patients,” said Gary Parker, PhD,
MS, BSN, manager of Mercy’s clinical education and research. “What we
found is that while our nurses and the Chinese nurses felt similar in
their apprehension, the way the two cultures approach death and the
effects on nursing are very, very different.”
The data is so unique and interesting that it will
be presented in China this May at the Shanghai International Nursing
Conference, as well as at the 18th International Nursing Research
Congress in Vienna, Austria, in July. The American data was also
published in the Journal of Hospice & Palliative Nursing, a national
health care journal.
“There’s a universal apprehension when it comes to
caring for the dying, but what we found is that the Chinese are
culturally more comfortable with dying but their nurses receive less
terminally ill training because in China, most terminally ill patients
die at home. It’s a part of their culture,” said Parker. “But here in
America, we have more technical training and high-tech medicine and yet
we are very uncomfortable with dying. Here in the U.S., most terminally
ill patients die in the hospital. Therefore, our nurses have to deal
directly with death more than their Chinese counterparts. Our study has
uncovered all kinds of interesting similarities and differences.”
Each of the nurses in the study completed a survey,
the Professional End-of-Life Attitude Scale (PEAS), that measures the
differences in attitudes by professional degree, gender and years of
experience. Survey questions included: “Do I feel angry when a patient
of mine dies? I would prefer to care for patients for whom I could do
something rather than patients with a terminal prognosis? Hiding my
emotions makes it easier for me to talk to terminally ill patients?”
Because of the survey findings, Mercy has increased
its end-of-life education for nurses so they can better meet the
challenges of when a patient dies and find ways to decompress from the
stress.
“Our research confirmed something that no one really
wants to talk about in the U.S., and that’s dying,” said Krista Reyna,
MS, BSN, Mercy’s program manager for palliative care. “This research
didn’t show us anything we didn’t already know. We know it’s difficult
emotionally to deal with dying patients, but what this study does is
confirm the need for nurses to have additional education and greater
support systems in dealing with dying patients and their families.”
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