Differences between Nurses’ Cognition, Feelings and Emotional Labor Involving Patients with End-stage Cancer and with Non-end-stage Cancer

Abstract

Abstract

The purposes of this study were to compare the difference between nurses’ cognition including impressions and psychological distance from patients with end-stage cancer（ESC）and those with non-end-stage cancer（N-ESC）, and to elucidate feelings and emotional labor involving these patients.

The sample was a convenience sample of nurses who provided nursing care to patients with both ESC and N-ECS cancer. A self-oriented questionnaire was delivered to 567 nurses who had 13 months or more of clinical experience. Each nurse was asked to choose two patients in the past or present, one with ESC and the other with N-ESC, and then asked to respond to questions about nurses’ cognition, feelings, and emotional labor involving these patients.

A total of 372 agreed to participate in this study. The nurses’ cognition about “friendliness toward their patients” and “feeling of psychological distance” was negatively correlated for the patient with ESC, and was positively correlated for the patient with N-ESC. The nurses showed emotional conflict between having an intimate relationship with the patients and feeling grief. In addition, the nurses responded that they did more “expression of caring”, and “suppressed expression” of emotional labor tasks for the ESC patients than for the N-ESC patients （p＜0.001）. These results suggested that the nurses provided pain relief care with sympathy. In addition, the nurses tended to hide their feelings and tried to show a smile on their face when they provide care to the ESC patients.