Work-related stress can negatively impact health care providers’ (HCPs) ability to provide care. We examined the sources of work-related stress experienced by HCPs who provided medical care for people living with HIV/AIDS and the impact of the stress on HCPs’ well-being and work performance. We conducted in-depth interviews with 46 HIV/AIDS HCPs in Guangxi, China. The interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, and imported into NVivo V.11 for data management and data analysis using a thematic approach. We found that the key sources of stress at work included general work-related sources and HIV/AIDS-related sources. All stress was seen to have a substantial impact on the HCPs’ individual well-being, family and social life, and quality of care they provided. We recommended that government and health care facilities should take measures to improve institutional culture and professional development for HIV/AIDS HCPs. More professional training schemes should be provided to strengthen HCPs’ competence, improve universal protection from occupational exposure, and reduce the stigma toward HIV/AIDS patients and their care providers.

Background With the aging of the population, high rates of cancer and comorbidity complexity, the end-of-life care for patients will be ever more important. Nurses have always played an essential role in end-of-life care. Insufficient education and training in end-of-life care has been regarded as a major reason of inadequate symptom recognition, symptom management, and communication which results in mental trauma for both the patient’s family and attending health care providers. Undergraduate nurses do end-of-life care as part of their clinical learning. However, undergraduate nurses’ perceptions of the education they received about end-of-life care are not documented. Objective This study aimed to critically explore the current state of education regarding end-of-life care from the perspectives of undergraduate nurses. Methods We used a descriptive qualitative design. Face-to-face semi-structured interviews were conducted from May to August 2020, with a purposive sample of 15 fourth-year undergraduate nurses who finished the internship. Data were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using content analysis. Findings Three main themes relating to undergraduate nurses’ experiences of end-of-life care education emerged from the thematic analysis: 1) Universities provide foundational knowledge about end-of-life care, but it still needs improvement; 2) Clinical practice consolidates and drives undergraduate nurses’ knowledge, skills and confidence about end-of-life care; and 3) cultural attitudes of patients’ family toward disease and death sometimes impedes learning and knowledge translation about end-of-life care. Conclusion Undergraduate nursing students benefit from not only theoretical content delivered in the university setting but also practice happened on clinical placement. The current undergraduate curriculum, related to end-of-life care, is disjointed. Meanwhile, undergraduate nurses’ learning and knowledge translation of end-of-life care are impeded by cultural attitudes toward disease and death.

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