The purpose of this study is to identify the factors affecting performance of end-of-life care of ICU nurses and provide basic data for systematic and high quality end-of-life care performance.
The subjects of this study were nurses working in the ICU of two senior general hospitals located in G province. Data were collected on October to November 2020, and 144 intensive care unit nurses were selected. To evaluate the performance of end-of-life care, the tool was used which was developed by Park (1996) and amended & supplemented by Chung (2013); with regard to the Moral Distress, the tool developed by Hamric et al. (2012) and amended & supplemented by Chae et al. (2016); in order to the
Ethical Climate, the developed by Olson (1998) and translated by Hwang & Park (2014); as for the Difficulties in End-of-Life Care, the developed by Kinoshita (2011) and translated by Kim et al.(2019); so as to the Positive Psychological Capital, the developed by Luthans & Youssef (2007) and translated by Lee & Choi(2010).
The collected data were analyzed using SPSS/WIN 25.0 program.
specifically, using independent t-test, one-way ANOVA, Scheffe test, Pearson’s correlation coefficient and multiple regression.
The results of this study are as follows.
1) The average score of performance of end-of-life care for ICU nurses is 2.66±0.36 on the 4 point scale, and that of Moral Distress is 5.62±2.73 on the 16 point scale. The average sore of the Ethical Climate is 3.46±0.54 on the 5 point scale and that of Difficulties in End-of-Life Care is 3.26±0.50 on the 5 point scale and that of Positive Psychological Capital is 3.80±0.66 on the 6 point scale.
2) The subjects’ performance of end-of-life care is significantly different depending on Marital status(t=-2.79, p=.006)), Experiences of end-of-life care education(t=-2.42, p=.017).
3) The performance of end-of-life care among ICU nurses is positively correlated with Ethical Climate(r=.26, p=.001), Positive Psychological Capital(r=.39, p<.001), and negatively correlated with Difficulties in End-of-Life Care(r=-.29, p<.001), and not correlated with Moral Distress (r=-.06, p=.473).
4) The most influencing factor of performance of end-of-life care among ICU nurses is Positive Psychological Capital (β=.30, p<.001), followed by Difficulties in End-of-Life Care (β=-.18, p=.035). The relevant variables have 24.8% influence(F=9.10, p<.001) on the performance of end-of-life care among ICU nurses.
In conclusion, these results suggest that Positive Psychological Capital, Difficulties in End-of-Life Care have an important on performance of end-of-life care. Therefore, nursing intervention program and education to reduce Difficulties in End-of-Life Care and increase Positive Psychological Capital for ICU nurses.