A Phenomenological Study On Nurses’ Cognition,Emotion And Behavior Of Death

Objective: To interview with nurses working in clinical work,explore their experience in the face of patients’ death,to understand nurses’ death cognition,emotional response and coping behavior in the face of death,and to identify the relationship between death cognition,emotion and behavior.Methods: This study used the descriptive phenomenology method in qualitative research.Unstructured face-to-face interviews were carried out with nurses who had experienced patients’ death or dying events in a level A tertiary hospital in Changsha City,Hunan Province.The interviews were recorded with a voice recorder after obtaining the informed consent of the interviewees.Data were sorted and analyzed based on the qualitative data analysis software Nvivo11.0 according to the Colaizzi’s 7-step method in the phenomenology research.Results: There were 18 interviewees included in this study(4 males and 14 females).Their ages were from 24 to 49 years old,with an average age of(34.61±7.27)years old.The nurses were located in medical,surgical,gynecology and obstetrics,pediatrics,operating room and ICU.Nurses’ working experience was between 1 to 30 years,with an average of(12.83±8.80)years.There are 14 undergraduates,4 master’s nurses.The professional title was 1 junior nurse,4 senior nurses,12 supervisor nurses,1 associate professor nurse.There were five unmarried and 13 married nurses.The coding and analysis results are as follows:(1)After coding and data analysis for nurses’ cognition of death,four themes were identified:physiological,spiritual,social,and life aspects.There are many sources of death cognition,and Chinese traditional culture also subtly influences it.(2)Nurses who face death often have negative emotions.It will be alleviated with the positive coping behavior and the increase in death experience.Emotions in facing death also vary in different situations.(3)Four themes were identified for coping behavior of nurses facing death,coping behavior to themselves,coping behavior to family and coping behaviors to nursing work and coping behaviors to society.Conclusion: Nurses’ cognition of death,emotion and coping behavior in the face of death are interrelated.The deficiency in cognitive will make nurses prone to negative emotions in the face of death events,and lead to inadequate coping ability.The stress caused by negative emotions usually makes nurses and improve their coping behaviors death cognition.Positive behavior in response to negative emotions makes nurses more at ease when confronted with death again.