Death concerns and attitudes of the nurses of St. Mary's Hospital in Taiwan, and a proposed death education program

• Main Author: Chia-Men, Raimondo Yang
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 1984
• Subjects: Death > Psychological aspets; Counseling; Counseling Psychology; Counselor Education
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_masteral/1048
• Institution: De La Salle University

The purpose of this research is to determine the attitudes of the nurses towards death, general views of death concerns as well as feelings about and attitude in handling th dying patients at St. Mary's Hospital in Taiwan, 1982-1983. The descriptive survey method was used consisting of 20 questions (Hardt Test) to determine whether the nurses' attitudes towards death are positive or negative. Another set of 29 questions, was used to determine the nurses' general views of death, personal attitudes and death concerns as well as their personal feelings and attitudes towards death in relation to handling the dying patients. Two hundred twenty nurses in St. Mary's Hospital in Lotung responded to the questionnaires. In order to determine which items the respondents reacted to most positively and which most negatively, in the area of general views and personal concerns about death as well as personal feelings about attitudes in handling the dying patients, the means for each item was computed. Percentages were used in stated items. In determining the significant differences among nurses' feelings about death and attitudes in handling the dying according to their age and length of service as a nurse, t-test for independent samples was utilized. For the comparison on the nurses' feelings about death and attitudes towards handling the dying patients among various religion, ANOVA was utilized. The results were as follows: 60 percent of the nurses had positive attitudes towards death and 40 percent had negative feelings. There are more respondents who held positive attitudes rather than negative ones, especially the Taoists who had the biggest percentage of positive attitudes rather than negative attitudes.Death is generally viewed as inevitable, as the end of something, and as a beginning of another thing. Generally the respondents seemed not personally concerned about death as they consider thinking about it as a waste of time and something not to be planned but something which can be prepare for. The nurses feelings tow