Abstract:

This study examined the attitude of nurses towards the care of dying patients at the federal teaching hospital Gombe, Nigeria, three research questions and one hypothesis were formulated in line with the objectives of the study. Research design adopted was the cross-sectional approach. Questionnaires and interviews were used to raise vital data. sample size of 75 nurses was selected for the study using stratified random sampling method. The data were analyzed using the statistical package for social science. A p-value of 0.05 levels was used at one degree of freedom to test the hypothesis. Demographic and work environment factors such as emotional stress, inter and intra- professional factors influences nurses’ attitudes towards caring for patients that are dying as 50 (66.7%) of the respondents strongly agreed that favorable conditions amongst Nurses and inter-professional teamwork with other healthcare workers is needed to break negative cycle of job dissatisfaction, 18 (24) agreed, 7 (9.3) strongly disagreed to this fact. Nurses’ years of experience has influence of their attitude towards dying patients as 40 (53.3%) of respondents strongly agreed that they would not want to be assigned to care for a dying person as younger nurses, 70 (93.3%) of the respondents were of the view that they would feel like running away when a patient dies during their first night shift as younger nurses. findings revealed that nurses’ age and the level of knowledge through training in critical care nursing has influence on their attitude towards caring for a dying patient.

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