Caring as a source of death anxiety in palliative care

摘要

For many nurses in general and community nurses in particular, the advent of caring for dying patients may serve as a constant reminder of how fragile their own lives are, increasing their worries about death and dying. Such death anxiety may be experienced each time they care for someone who is dying. Caring for dying patients brings death to the forefront of their minds and, by extension, 'builds' on their existential anxiety. Because its source is patients' death, this experience is termed death anxiety.The point is that community nurses and other palliative care professionals may experience an extra level of death anxiety from being exposed to dying episodes more often than any other health professional.