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Allaire, Jennifer

Nursing

2013

MS

Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRNs) are an ever increasing and integral part of the healthcare workforce. Most nurses inevitably encounter death at some point during their careers. In order to provide end of life care most effectively, APRNs must be cognizant of their own personal attitudes towards death and understand how those attitudes in turn shape the end of life care that they provide. At present, there is very little literature examining the attitudes toward death of graduate nursing students. This descriptive study examined the attitudes toward death of 33 graduate nursing students. The instrument used was the Death Attitude Profile-Revised, a 32 question survey. In addition, subjects answered demographic questions and reported level of exposure to death, dying or end of life. This study found that the subjects' self-reported level of professional or personal exposure to death was not predictivfe of their attitudes towar death. However, results did indicate that graduate nursing students may be more likely to exhibit negative attitudes toward death having had minimal academic exposure to the end of life process. Findings from this study suggest that there is a need for an increased focus on end of life care within graduate nursing programs, which in turn could improve attitudes towards death and subsequently the quality of end of life care provide by nurses.