Coping styles of Guyanese nurses in the face of patients’ deaths: A cross-sectional study

Abstract

Objective: to investigate nurses’ strategies to cope with patients’ deaths and to explore potentialinfluences of cultural aspects on this phenomenon. Methodology: this is a cross-sectional study.The participants were 85 Registered Nurses from a Guyanese regional hospital. Data collectionwas carried out using a sociodemographic questionnaire and the Coping Strategies Inventoryby Lazarus and Folkman. Descriptive statistics and the Spearman’s correlation test, Student’st-test and Kruskal-Wallis test were performed to explore the data obtained. Results: most of theparticipants were women (85.9%) of African descent (56.5%). The mean age was 29.63 years old(SD=8.98), varying from 20 to 55 years old. Nurses have adopted the Planful problem-solving,Self-controlling and Positive reappraisal coping strategies to deal with patients’ deaths, and religionexerted an influence on the coping style they mentioned. Years as a Registered Nurse had positivecorrelations between the Planned problem-solving, Positive reappraisal, Seeking social support andDistancing coping styles related to patients’ deaths. Nurses professing the Hindu religion presentedhigher scores related to the Escape-avoidance coping style. Conclusion: even without specifictraining in coping with death, Guyanese nurses have adopted adequate coping strategies to dealwith this phenomenon. Cultural beliefs, such as religions of different philosophical and spiritualframeworks, may influence nurses’ coping strategies in the face of patients’ deaths.