The Relationships of End-of-life Care Stress with Compassionate Competence and Attitudes toward End-of-life Care among Pediatric Nurses

Purpose: This study aimed to provide basic data for developing interventions to relieve the end-of-life care stress experienced by pediatric nurses by examining the relationships of end-of-life care stress with compassionate competence and attitudes toward end-of-life care. Methods: Data were collected via a survey that was conducted from September 10 to September 30, 2018 and administered to 113 nurses who had worked for more than 6 months in a pediatric unit at a tertiary hospital in Seoul, South Korea. The data were analyzed for frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation, and the independent t-test, one-way analysis of variance, and Pearson correlation analysis were conducted using SPSS version 25.0. Results: End-of-life care stress among pediatric nurses had a weak positive correlation (r=0.216, P<0.05) with compassionate competence and had no significant correlation with attitudes toward end-of-life care. Among the sub-factors of end-of-life care stress, psychological difficulties had a weak positive correlation with sensitivity (r=0.309, P<0.01) and communication (r=0.230, P<0.05), which are aspects of compassionate competence. Lack of knowledge about end-of-life care had a weak positive correlation with communication (r=0.209, P<0.05) as an aspect of compassionate competence. Conclusion: To improve the quality of end-of-life care provided by pediatric nurses, it is necessary to improve their compassionate competence and reduce their end-of-life care stress by developing education and support programs tailored to the characteristics of children and specific communication methods.