ABSTRACT
Objective:To investigate the current situation of nurses′ death attitudes, death competency and death education need in tertiary care hospitals, and analyze their relationship and to provide suggestions and guidance for clinical death education.Methods:This was a cross-sectional survey. From January to March 2022, a random sample of 1 902 nurses from five tertiary hospitals in Hunan Province Changsha City was selected as the study population. The general information questionnaire the Death Attitude Profile-Revised (DAP-R), Coping with Death Scale (CDS) and Death Education Needs Scale were used to investigate the current situation of nurses′ death attitudes, death competency and death education needs in tertiary hospitals, and the correlations among them were analyzed.Results:The 1 837 valid questionnaires were finally collected. The total score of death attitude was (91.37 ± 11.26) points, the total score of death competency was (109.25 ± 21.67) points and the total score of death education needs was (214.13 ± 28.64) points. Natural acceptance was positively correlated with death education needs ( r=0.458, P<0.05), escape acceptance was positively correlated with death education needs ( r=0.312, P<0.05), convergent acceptance was positively correlated with death education needs ( r=0.347, P<0.05), death avoidance was negatively correlated with death education needs ( r=-0.291, P<0.05), and death competency was positively correlated with death education needs ( r=0.356, P<0.05). Conclusions:Nurses had some degree of positive death attitudes, moderate level of death competency and higher need for death education. The death education need was positively correlated with positive death attitudes and death competency. The death education should be strengthened to cultivate positive death attitudes and improve death competency to improve the quality of end-of-life care and the quality of patient death.