요양병원 간호사의 죽음인식과 임종간호 수행과의 관계

Nurses’ Death Perception and Terminal Care Performance in Long-term Care Hospital

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate nurses’ death perception and terminal care performance in a long-term care hospital and provide meaningful data to improve the terminal care performance. Methods: A total of 128 nurses working at 6 long-term care hospitals participated in this study. Inumiya’s instrument on level of nurses’ death perception and Park’s instrument on level of terminal care performance were used. Results: The level of nurses’ negative meaning towards death and terminal care performance were both high. Christian nurses showed higher level of terminal care performance than those without religion (t=3.34, p=.022) and nurses who experienced friends’ death showed higher level of terminal care performance than parents or spouse’ death (F=4.42, p=.021). There was no significant correlation between death perception and terminal care performance in nurses. Conclusion: Based on these findings, an education program is needed to increase nurses’ positive perception towards death and to improve the spiritual area of terminal care performance in long-term care hospitals.