Do Nurses Who Care for Patients in Palliative and End-Of-Life Settings Perform Good Self-care?

Self-care is something nurses know they should do, but do they? While attending national End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium train-the-trainer courses, attendees have an opportunity to participate in a 1-hour self-care session, sharing personal stories of how they and their organizations participate in this care, admitting barriers in taking good care of themselves, and talking about the importance and challenges of finding balance in life. During a period of 13 months, 605 nurses who attended one of nine national End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium courses responded to a survey about self-care that was developed by End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium investigators and faculty. The nurses, who filled out the survey voluntarily, ranged in age from 22 to 78 years and had between 0 and 58 years of nursing experience. The respondents practiced in all types of healthcare settings from hospices to hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, schools of nursing, and in critical care, pediatrics, geriatrics, oncology, hospice, palliative care, and medical/surgical settings. The purpose of this article was to share the descriptions of self-care among End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium–trained nurses. It is important that palliative care nurses practice self-care so they can, in turn, provide excellent care for others.