Nurses’ perceptions of caring for dying patients in an open critical care unit: a descriptive exploratory study

Abstract

This study illustrates nurses' perceptions of caring for dying patients in an open critical care unit. This environment influences the development of the nursing role as protector and presents barriers to achieving an ideal death.

The nurse's role in palliative care: A qualitative meta‐synthesis

“…Across several continents and contexts, the nurses described their role as being the patient's advocate (Arbour & Wiegand, ; Howell et al., ; McCallin, ; McCallum & McConigley, ; Raphael et al., ; Törnquist, Andersson, & Edberg, ; Verschuur, Els, Groot, & van der Sande, ). In this role nurses watched over the quality and continuity of care.…”

Biomedical approaches to care and their influence on point of care nurses: a scoping review

“…Nurses find themselves grappling between existing tensions especially when a curative, lifesaving approach is the focus despite hopeless clinical situations. [38] However, nurses must acknowledge that biomedical and technology influences provide nurses the opportunity to acquire empirical evidence and knowledge within the healthcare team.…”

“…Udo and colleagues [37] conducted a hermeneutic qualitative study whereby 10 surgical nurses presented critical incidents that were analysed hermeneutically. Two exploratory descriptive studies are included, McCallum and McConigley [38] described provision of end of life care on a high dependency unit for five Registered Nurses, describes the characteristics of a good death as defined by 15 critical care nurses. Bailey and colleagues [39] used a qualitative descriptive design to describe nurses' experiences of delivering spiritual care to palliative care patients.…”

“…Regardless of sociopolitical factors such as diminished funding, increased workload, demands on nurses, policies [38] shorter hospital stays [36] and increased technology [40] nurses acknowledge that these factors influence their care and nurse presence. The responsibility lies with the nurse to ensure that when they are engaging with patients, they practice wholistically and do not make decisions based solely on medical or technological influences.…”

“…[17,35,36,40] The literature clearly articulates that nurses had difficulty simultaneously caring for patients who were critically ill and caring for patients whose care was withdrawn because nurses grappled with the shift of care from curative and lifesaving to comfort measures only. [38] Nurses often prioritized patient care based on medical directives and facts [36,40] rather than wholistic care. Thus, nurses were not able to establish meaningful connections with patients.…”