Hong-rui Shi
Sichuan University, China
Title: Attitudes toward death and demands of death education of nursing undergraduates: A cross-sectional study
Biography
Biography: Hong-rui Shi
Abstract
BACKGROUND: A majority of nurses struggled with a negative emotion of anger, doubt, fear or anxiety, uncomfortable in the face of death and dying. However, little is known about nursing students in China. Our study was to investigate the attitudes toward death and demands of death education of nursing undergraduates, and to provide reference for promoting death education in medical colleges.
METHODS: A total of 1000 nursing undergraduates who were from four medical colleges in Shanxi were selected by stratified random sampling method from May to November 2017. Death Attitude Profile-Revised(DAP-R-C) was used to assess the attitudes toward death. A self-developed questionnaire was used to investigate the demands of death education.
RESULTS: The average score of students’ attitudes toward death was 2.82±0.40. The average score of students’ demands of death education was 4.20±0.55. Of the 1000 nursing students, 902 (90.2%) students considered there should be courses on death education. A total of 865(95.9%) students believed courses should be provided in school period, of which 374(43.2%) students assumed the course should be elective course. 345 (39.9%) students thought that death education should be taught in their sophomore year, the duration was about 18 to 27 class hours. Their favorite teaching methods included classroom teaching, video demonstration, experience teaching, scenario simulation, and case analysis.
CONCLUSIONS: Nursing undergraduates had a negative attitude towards death. The demands of death education is high. Required or elective courses of death education with varied teaching methods may be a good choice for nursing undergraduates.