Nursing students’ attitudes towards death and end-of-life care

Abstract

Background: Personal and clinical experiences influence how nursing students cope with death. Objective: To assess nursing students’ attitudes towards death and end-of-life care. Methods: Descriptive study. Data were collected through an online questionnaire. The sample con-sisted of 158 undergraduate nursing students. Quantitative data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics software. Descriptive statistics and exploratory data analysis were performed through parametric and non-parametric tests. Results: Students tend more to attitudes of neutral acceptance, fear of death, and approach acceptance and less to attitudes of avoidance and escape. Regarding end-of-life care, students who had already completed clinical training showed positive attitudes. Conclusion: Teaching and learning methodologies should be used to allow students to expose their experiences with death and end-of-life care in clinical training.