Undoubtedly, nurses have a significant role entrusted to them of caring for patients. There are virtues that all nurses must have, including dignity, integrity, patience, and empathy. The attitude of nurses towards the death of their patients dramatically affects the end of life care. A right attitude is necessary for nurses to integrate caring behaviors with their patients and healthcare providers. Therefore, nurses must have a better attitude while at work for efficient service delivery. This essay will thus analyze nurse’s attitudes towards the death of patients and euthanasia.
One of the most important ethical challenges that health care providers have to face is providing end-of-life care to patients and euthanasia (Moisio, 2017). The act of deliberately ending a patient’s life to minimize suffering and prolonged pain is revered as euthanasia. The nurse’s attitude during this time plays a significant role in efficient service delivery. Patients have to be allowed to participate in decision making to control, treat, or end life in prolonged suffering and pain. Wishes of the patient should be respected if they are mentally competent to make such decisions.
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A significant threat to humanity is death. This is a considerable threat, especially to health care providers who have to face it almost daily. The terminal phase of a patient where death anxiety is experienced more intensely usually is a challenging experience for both the patient and nurses (Moisio, 2017). This phase brings positive and negative feelings. Nurses need to possess skills of discernment of the indicators of death and be empathetic to the patients and their families. This will thus bring an effective and efficient end of life care to patients who wish to end their life and relieve suffering.
In general, euthanasia involves a healthcare professional deliberately administering drugs based on the patients’ desire to end their own life (Moisio, 2017). This implies that the health care profession injects the patient with a barbiturate to induce coma, followed by an injection that induces neuromuscular relaxation, which stops respiration, thus causing death. Euthanasia can be classified as voluntary or non-voluntary.
Voluntary euthanasia is done with the consent of the suffering patient. Non-voluntary euthanasia is normally done on a person who is not able to give consent because of their current health condition (Moisio, 2017). This, therefore, means that ending one’s life with medication without personal consent cannot be considered as euthanasia. For a proficient end of life care to patients, nurses need to re-evaluate their attitude towards death and euthanasia.
As clearly stated earlier, euthanasia brings about both negative and positive feelings to nurses and patients. Religious beliefs also play a vital role. A religious nurse will frown upon this whole process of Euthanasia (Moisio, 2017). A patient will consider euthanasia in the following cases, having a fear of prolonged suffering and pain, intense inner despair, and after the reduced quality of life, and the fear solely depending on others for survival.
An investigative study done on the attitude of nurses during Euthanasia in Zahedan Iran showed that with empathy, a quality end of life service is provided. Nurses giving quality care to dying patients require an effective way of coping with stress and a deep understanding of the end of life (Moisio, 2017). Those nurses who cannot face the threat of death do withdraw themselves from patients and their families, and the great fear inside them reflected on their attitudes.
Thus, determining the feelings and attitudes of nurses to dying patients and the act of euthanasia and deeply understanding the factors that affect their attitude gives a deeper knowledge of how quality and an efficient end of life care can be provided (Moisio, 2019). The study in Iran also showed that the decision of end of life affects the lives of nurses and healthcare providers by reducing job satisfaction and burnout.
The above study was done in Zahedan, Iran, also clearly showed that nurses are aware of patient’s wishes to end their life due to prolonged illness, and they acknowledged that euthanasia should be applied to patients with fatal illness or last stage cancer (Moisio, 2019). Most nurses tend to resolve to euthanasia in order to help the bereaved family members who are expected to pay the huge accumulated hospital bills.
Nurses, when faced with an encounter of euthanasia, request some do feel anger. This negative attitude of nurses towards euthanasia can be modified by education about death (Moisio, 2017). The study above also showed that these requests are common when patients have been admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) with no physical response being seen. ICU normally accumulates a lot of bills with inputs such as oxygen being paid for. There the negative attitude of nurses towards euthanasia should be changed by availing education on reasons for it.
Gender also affects nurses’ attitudes towards euthanasia. According to the study conducted by Dag and Badir, male nurses were only a few, and thus a great number of nurses happen to be female who gets the euthanasia request (Moisio, 2019). Female nurses tend to have a lot of concern about euthanasia. Their attitude towards euthanasia happens to be a projection of their inner fear and reservation towards death.
Death scale fear was among the findings on the study conducted in Zahend Iran. Nurses who had experienced an intense loss recently to the study had a larger scale fear score (Moisio, 2017). Such nurses, when they get euthanasia requests from patients, they tend to be provoked to anger. Their fear scale thus rises and, in some cases, a mental disturbance that affects service provision.
Nurses also tend to avoid working with dying patients. Emotional damage is experienced together with a decreased output of job satisfaction (Moisio, 2017). The concept of death, value is given to terminally ill patients, and the defense mechanism that comes with attachment gained from caring for dying patients causes a major source of stress to the nurses. The study showed that nurses with a closer relationship with their dying patients tend to experience burnout more often.
From the above-detailed study, it is clear that the attitude of nurses during euthanasia plays a vital role in the provision of end life care. Euthanasia is majorly considered in cases where the patient has a terminal illness. A better attitude from nurses brings about an efficient end of life care to patients. Nurses are also encouraged to be empathetic to dying patients and their families. ICU nurses tend to have a positive attitude towards euthanasia. It is therefore proposed that health workers be educated on euthanasia in order to get a positive attitude from them. A positive attitude from nurses will thus bring about an efficient and quality end of life care.
References
Terkamo-Moisio, A., Kvist, T., Kangasniemi, M., Laitila, T., Ryynänen, O. P., & Pietilä, A. M. (2017). Nurses’ attitudes towards euthanasia in conflict with professional ethical guidelines. Nursing Ethics , 24 (1), 70-86.
Terkamo-Moisio, A., Gastmans, C., Ryynänen, O. P., & Pietilä, A. M. (2019). Finnish nurses’ attitudes towards their role in the euthanasia process. Nursing Ethics , 26 (3), 700-714.
