Stress and Coping Methods of Nurses: caring for dying patients- a literature review

Abstract

As the population ages and the increasing number of diseases, the need for Palliative Care also increases. Nurses play an important role in caring for palliative care patients to enjoy longer quality life or hospice patients whose lives nearing death. Their role is challenging. Similar to emergency rooms and internal medicine wards, they face distress, and the role takes a toll on them. Factors that affect nurses at work are the results of patients’ death and dying as well as how they perceive death. These hinder them to cope with their professional demand but with correct coping methods, level of death anxiety decreases and performance in palliative care improves. This literature review suggests that coping strategies can be used by both healthcare professionals dealing with palliative care patients.

The literature review is composed of thirty (30) articles published from 2013-2023 from three different scientific databases. These peer reviewed articles studied different coping methods of nurses dealing with palliative care. CINAHL and Science Direct provided most of the articles used followed by PubMed.