Mediating Effects of Empathy and Resilience on the Relationship between Terminal Care Stress and Performance for Nurses in a Tertiary Hospital / 한국호스피스완화의료학회지

PURPOSE: To develop end-of-life care training programs for nurses who provide in a tertiary hospital, we examined the mediating effects of empathy and resilience on the relationship between their stress and job performance. METHODS: This study was conducted with 218 participants at a hospital in B city in South Korea from August 15 through August 30, 2017. Data collected from the participants were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, Pearson's correlation coefficients, and multiple regression using the IBM SPSS/WIN 21.0 software. RESULTS: Terminal care stress was found to be negatively correlated with empathy competence (r=−0.345, P < 0.001), resilience (r=−0.223, P=0.001) and terminal care performance (r=−0.260, P < 0.001), whereas empathy (r=0.467, P < 0.001) and resilience (r=0.358, P < 0.001) were positively correlated with terminal care performance. Empathy had a complete mediating effect (β=0.409, P < 0.001) on the relationship between terminal care stress and performance, and resilience a partial mediating effect (β=0.294, P < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Based on the findings of this study, development of training programs with a focus on empathy and resilience are highly recommended to improve job performance of nurses who provide terminal care in a tertiary hospital.

Nursing Home Placement: The Process of Decision Making and Adaptation among Adult Children Caregivers of Demented Parents in Korea

PURPOSE: The goal of this study was to explore and describe the process of nursing home placement decision making and adaptation among adult children caregivers of demented parents in Korea and to generate a substantive theory grounded in their experiences. METHODS: The participants were 16 adult children caregivers who had placed their demented elders into nursing homes. Data were collected by in-depth unstructured interviews with individual participants. Data were analyzed by Strauss and Corbin's Grounded Theory methodology. RESULTS: Analysis revealed that the core category of the process of nursing home placement decision making and adaptation among adult children caregivers was accepting the inevitable and reorienting to changes. It consisted of four phases: realizing a dead end, seeking a way out, accepting the inevitable decision, and reorienting to changes. Participants were driven to the corner of making the inevitable decision by the overwhelming care situation and confronted by various challenges in dealing with the decision. But they managed to accept the inevitableness of the decision and further learned to reorient themselves to the changed care situation utilizing various action/interaction strategies. CONCLUSION: The findings of the study provide the basic information for developing proactive strategies to support family caregivers better in the difficult period of nursing home placement.