PURPOSE: This study aimed to identify the relationships among death perceptions, death anxiety, and terminal care attitudes of nurses in oncology unit and to explore the predictors affecting their attitudes toward terminal care in Korea. METHODS: A sample of 94 nurses was recruited from oncology units at one university hospital and a national medical center in Korea. The subjects completed a demographic questionnaire, the View of Life and Death Scale, the Fear of Death Scale the Korean version, and the Attitudes toward Nursing Care of the Dying Scale. RESULTS: The subjects' terminal care attitudes were significantly positively influenced by death concern, perception of positive meanings of death, and experiences with the death of a family member or acquaintance in the last year. Those influential variables explained 21.5% of their terminal care attitudes. CONCLUSION: Findings of this study suggest that developing continuing education programs that teach effective coping strategies to prevent death anxiety and identifying barriers that can make caring for dying patients difficult may make a significant positive increase in the nurses' attitudes toward care of the dying. In addition, the provision of effective palliative care in oncology settings remains open to review through further research and development.
Anxiety* ; Attitude to Death* ; Education, Continuing ; Humans ; Korea ; Medical Oncology ; Nursing Care ; Palliative Care ; Terminal Care ; Surveys and Questionnaires