Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate factors related to the attitudes of nurses attending terminally ill patients. A self-report questionnaire was administered to nurses with three or more years of clinical experience employed at medical institutions providing cancer care in the Kanto region. Answers were obtained from 697 nurses, and 586 (response rate: 50.3%) excluding invalid answers were analyzed to examine the relationships between the attitudes of nurses (as measured using the “Frommelt's Attitudes Toward Care of the Dying Scale”) and “personal attributes,” “characteristics of the nurse in terminal care,” and “characteristics of environment around the nurse.” Analysis of the data revealed that there were significant relationships between the attitudes of nurses and both age and clinical experience, as well as with “characteristics of environment around the nurse” in terms of the strength of the nursing organization as a team, the sharing of opinions with physicians, the condition of care given at the facility to support terminally ill patients and families, and the attendance and involvement of nurses in the process of informed consent. These results suggest the importance of the environment around nurses, including organizational approaches, in promoting positive attitudes of nurses.
