Nursing Students’ Attitudes toward End-of-Life Care and Dying with Dignity

Objective: This study aimed to examine nursing students' attitudes toward the principles of end-of-life care and dying with dignity. Material and Methods: The cross-sectional descriptive study's sample size was 260 students in the Faculty of Nursing. Data were collected between March and June 2022; participants were asked to complete a personal information form, an Assessment Scale of Attitudes Towards Principles About Dying with Dignity (ASAPDD), and the Frommelt Attitude Toward Care of the Dying Scale (FATCOD). The data were analysed using the IBM SPSS Statistics 22 software, employing parametric or nonparametric tests. Results: Nearly half of the participants knew about dying with dignity (42.30%) and end-of-life care (48.80%). Most students had no experience with end-of-life care in social life (78.5%) and clinical practice (64.6%). A statistically significant difference was identified between the ASAPDD score average and the student's general academic grade point average and their self-efficacy about end-of-life care (p<0.05). The mean FATCOD score had a statistically significant difference between students' enrolled classes and willingness to provide end-of-life care (p<0.05). Also, there were significant differences between some of the student's opinions about end-of-life care (to be indifferent to patients and their families’ feelings, to feel grief and sadness, etc.) and mean scores of these scales (p<0.05). Conclusions: Students' opinions and different characteristics are effective in attitudes towards principles about dying with dignity and end-of-life care. Key words: Dying with dignity, End-of-life care, Nursing, Student