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Nursing Students’ Perceived Attitudes towards Death: A Cross- Sectional Survey

Senthil P. Kumar , Senthil P. Kumar , Eva Chris , Maria Pais , Vaishali Sisodia , K. Vijaya Kumar

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Indian Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology 7(1):p 5-13, . | DOI:
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Abstract

Background and Purpose: Nurses, both as part of a multidisciplinary healthcare team or as individual service/care providers to patients with terminal illness and critical illnesses, are posed with imposed demands to understand, evaluate, document and communicate events leading to and the event of death investigations done by forensic medicine and pathology.The objective of this study was to assess the attitudes towards death in a sample of Indian nursing students. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was performed on 52 nursing students (all female) who were recruited on convenient sampling. The survey instrument used in this study was Death Attitudes Profile-Revised (DAP-R) which was a 32-item scale with responses on a 7-point Likert scale and five distinct dimensions- Fear of Death (7 items), Death Avoidance (5 items), Neutral Acceptance (5 items), Approach Acceptance (10 items) and Escape Acceptance (5 items). Descriptive analysis was done using frequencies for each of the items and item-responses of the DAP-R and study participants’ demographic variables. Comparison of total scores and subscale scores between age and religion were done using independent t-test and one-way analysis of variance respectively. All analyses were done at 95% confidence interval using Statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 16.0 for Windows. Results: Fear of Death score was 32.78 ± 4.02 (4.68 ±.57%), Death Avoidance was 23.78 ± 4.03 (4.75 ±.80%), Neutral Acceptance was 24.96 ± 4.53 (4.99 ±.90%), Approach Acceptance was 47.82 ± 5.77 (4.78 ±.57%), Escape Acceptance was 21.44 ± 4.92 (4.28 ±.98%). Overall DAP-R score was 150.78 ± 17.48 and it was found that Death avoidance and Escape acceptance was significantly higher (p<.05) in younger students and Christian students respectively. Conclusion: Nursing students had fairly neutral attitudes towards death, while death avoidance was common in younger students and escape acceptance was higher among Christian students.

Keywords: Self-esteem; Self-concept; Nursing profession; Nursing education; Personality development. 

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  • Senthil P. Kumar
    ,
  • Senthil P. Kumar
    ,
  • Eva Chris
    ,
  • Maria Pais
    ,
  • Vaishali Sisodia
    ,
  • K. Vijaya Kumar
    ,
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