How Do We Enhance Oncology Nurses’ Caring Utilizing Resilience And Professional Quality of Life?: A cross-Sectional Descriptive Study

Background: Degree of caring behavior in oncology nurses is a crucial factor in caring for patients with cancer. It is important to understand factors related to oncology nurses' caring including their own resilience and professional quality of life. The purpose of this study was to investigate oncology nurses’ resilience, professional quality of life, and caring.Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive correlational study was conducted on 107 oncology nurses using self-report questionnaires. Data analysis included descriptive statistics, Pearson's correlations, and stepwise multiple regression to examine factors affecting oncology nurses’ degree of caring behavior, using SPSS/WIN 20.0 program (IBM).Result: Oncology nurses presented a low level of resilience and degree of caring behavior, a high level of compassion satisfaction, burnout, and secondary traumatic stress. There was a statistically significant relationship between degree of caring behavior, resilience (r = .43, p < .001), compassion satisfaction (r =.51, p < .001), and burnout (r = -.42, p < .001) as well as between secondary traumatic stress and burnout (r = .34, p < .001). Factors affecting oncology nurses’ degree of caring behavior were compassion satisfaction and education level. Conclusions: This study demonstrated that oncology nurses’ degree of caring behavior relates to professional quality of life, and education. This association suggests several implications for nursing practice to encourage holistic nursing. It will be necessary to study the factors affecting nurses' compassion satisfaction, and to try to promote compassion satisfaction according to the study.

“It’s a Tall Order But I’ll Try”: A Qualitative Study on Chinese Nurses’ Cognition and Experience Responding to Cancer Patients’ Requests to Hasten Death

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to understand the cognition and experience of oncology nurses in China when responding to a patient’s request to hasten death, to describe the obstacles that prevent their response, and to provide suggestions for dealing with the patient’s request. Methods: Researchers conducted a qualitative study that consisted of open-ended, semi-structured interviews with 18 registered nurses who had more than five years of working experience in the oncology department at a large-scale urban hospital. We analyzed these data for content and themes.Results: How to deal with patients’ requests to hasten death is a problem often encountered and handled by nurses in the Department of Oncology.Nurses have a certain understanding of the patients’ requests to hasten death. This study abstracts four themes: 1) the nurses’ cognition of the “Accelerate the process of death” ; 2) the methods they use to deal with the patients’ requests to hasten death; 3) the obstacles that prevent nurses from fulfilling the patients’ requests to hasten death; and 4) their suggestions for improvement.Conclusion: Nurses have a deep understanding of the real thoughts of patients who make a death request, and they hope to provide the corresponding psychological support and physical care. However, the lack of relevant knowledge, policy support, and cooperation of patients’ families are obstacles that prevent them from taking action. Therefore, increasing relevant training for nurses, encouraging multi-department cooperation, and developing standardized nursing processes may lay a foundation for oncology nurses to better undertake and guide such conversations.

Attitudes of Oncology Nurses Towards Care of Dying Patients and the Principles of Dying with Dignity and Their Views on Good Death

This study investigated oncology nurses’ attitudes toward caring for dying patients, their principles of dying with dignity, and their views on good death. This descriptive study included 257 oncology nurses working at two university hospitals, an educational research hospital and a state hospital in Turkey. Data were collected using the descriptive characteristics information form, the Frommelt Attitudes toward Care of the Dying scale, the Assessment Scale of Attitudes toward the Principles of Dying with Dignity, and the Good Death Scale. The nurses obtained mean scores of 99.53 ± 7.76 on the Frommelt Attitudes toward Care of the Dying scale, 26.84 ± 12.45 on the Assessment Scale of Attitudes toward the Principles of Dying with Dignity, and 57.23 ± 7.48 on the Good Death Scale. The nurses’ personal and professional characteristics influenced their attitudes toward caring for dying patients, the principles of dying with dignity, and their views on good death.