COMPARISON OF DEATH ATTITUDES AMONG HOSPICE WORKERS AND HEALTH-CARE PROFESSIONALS MOTHER SETTINGS

Since most health care professionals are trained in acute care setting s where ail efforts are employed to prolong life, they may not be comf ortable caring for dying patients. Hospice professionals have a lot of experience dealing with dying patients. The purpose of this study was to compare and contrast the death attitudes of hospice and hospital-b ased health care professionals. The construct theory for the study was that comfort in dealing with dying patients is based on 1) personal b eliefs about death and 2) experience dealing with dying patients. Seve nty-six hospital and 106 hospice workers participated in the study and completed the thirty-four-item Death Attitude Index (DAI) and the fif teen-item Death Anxiety Scale [1]. The results showed that hospice emp loyees had higher DAI scores (greater comfort caring for the terminall y ill), as predicted. Social workers had the highest mean DAI scores a nd the lowest scores on the DAS (low death anxiety). Nurses aides exhi bited high death anxiety and low comfort in dealing with terminal clie nts. For all disciplines, DAI and DAS scores were highly correlated (c oefficient = -0.91). Independent variables that correlated with high D AI scores were educational level and a sacred (versus secular) value s ystem.