Palliative Care and Death Anxiety

Diminishing treatment alternatives, losing hope for a possible recovery, insufficient control of pain and inability to provide the necessary technical support lead palliative care to bring multiple problems with itself. Along with technical and professional challenges, palliative care can put a humanitarian strain on the nurse. Caring for a dying patient is a worrisome experience which causes spiritual pain. An increase in nurses’ death anxiety may cause unwillingness to be together with a dying patient. In terms of the end of life, it is expected that the nurse stands by patient’s family to help them in sustaining their psychosocial wellness. In order to meet this expectation, nurses should get a qualitative training for end of life care along with good interpersonal communication skills and coping strategies.