Including personal development in palliative care education to address death anxiety

Background:

Death anxiety may interfere with health care workers' (HCW) relationship with patients and their families.

Aims:

Evaluate an intervention to address death anxiety and improve HCW skills dealing with patients/families in palliative and end-of-life care.

Design:

Quasi-experimental mixed methods approach with a pre-test/post-test design.

Participants:

208 HCWs receiving the intervention and working in end-of-life care, in and out of palliative care units, were invited to answer quantitative and qualitative questionnaires. In the end, 150 returned with quantitative answers and of these, 94 with qualitative answers as well. Additionally, out of the 150 participants, 26 were recruited for interview.

Results:

Pre-and post-test results revealed a significant reduction in levels of death anxiety, an increase in existential wellbeing, and a significant improvement in HCWs' perception of the quality of their helping relationship skills with patients/families. Content analysis provided an understanding of the difficulties experienced by the HCWs and the positive impact of the intervention.

Conclusion:

An intervention to address death anxiety and help relationship skills can reduce the use of avoidance mechanisms and improve HCW self-perceived psycho-existential support to patients/families.