Nurses’ Attitude Toward Caring for Dying Patients in a Nigerian Teaching Hospital

INTRODUCTION: Death and the dying experience are common phenomena in all clinical settings. Death and the dying presents physical and emotional strain on the dying patient, his relations and professional caregivers. OBJECTIVE: The study therefore assessed the sociodemographic determinants of nurses’ attitudes towards death and caring for dying patient. METHOD: A cross–sectional design was used to study 213 randomly selected nurses, working in one of the tier one teaching hospital in Nigeria. Attitude towards death and the dying was collected with Frommelt Attitude Care of the Dying and Death Attitude Profit–Revised questionnaire. The data collected was analysed with SPSS version 20 and inferential analyses were considered statistically significant at p < 0.05. RESULTS: The study revealed that most of the nurses had negative attitudes toward the concept of death (76.5%) and caring for dying patient (68%). Furthermore, a chi-square test revealed significant associations between the nurses’ years of working experience (χ(2) = 24.57, p <.00) and current unit of practice (χ(2) = 21.464; p = .002) and their attitude towards caring for the dying patient. Also, nurses’ age (χ(2) = 13.77, p = .032), professional qualifications (χ(2) = 13.774, p = .008), and current ward of practice (χ(2) = 16.505, p = .011) were significantly associated with their attitudes to death. Furthermore, the study observed a significant association between nurses’ attitudes to death and caring for the dying patient (χ(2) = 11.26, p < 0.01). CONCLUSION: This study concluded that nurses had negative attitudes towards death and dying and therefore prescribes, as part of continuing professional development strategy, the need for requisite positive value – laden, ethnoreligious specific education regarding end of life care.