Attitudes of Front-Line Nurses toward Hospice Care during the COVID-19 Pandemic
As the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread rapidly around the world, studies have shown that front-line nurses are likely to experience negative emotions such as sadness, anxiety, and depression when facing patients in pain and death. These negative emotions can lead to a lack of empathy and self-efficacy and a negative attitude toward hospice care for dying patients. A nurse’s attitude in the hospice care services plays an important role in the quality of hospice care.
A recent study of 150 front-line nurses in Wuhan city, China included several questionnaires with the goal of understanding the attitudes of front-line clinical nurses toward hospice care during the fight of the pandemic. The questionnaires included a general information questionnaire, the Frommelt Attitude toward Care of the Dying Scale, the Jefferson Scale of Empathy (JSE), and General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSES).
The study discusses some of the major challenges emergency responders of public health around the world have faced since the outbreak of COVID-19 as well as the threat it poses to people’s safety. The study stressed the necessity of adopting hospice care measures in order to deal with the psychological trauma of dealing with the loss of family members from COVID-19.
Conclusively, the study indicated that the attitude of front-line nurses that administer hospice care needs to be improved. The main factors that were found to influence the participants were age, hospice care knowledge, empathy level, and self-efficacy.
As a final point, the author of the study recommended that hospital staff establish and improve public health emergency strategies, cultivate nurses’ empathy, and enhance their sense of self-efficacy in an effort to improve the attitude towards hospice care. Now more than ever, facing a terminal diagnosis can be incredibly difficult for both the patient and their loved ones. Hospice care can provide physical, emotional, and spiritual comfort for the patient while also providing support for their loved one as they navigate through a difficult time.