Awareness and Attitude of Nurses in Regard to Providing Hospice Care.

BACKGROUND: Awareness and attitudes of nurses regarding end of life care are important factors in providing hospice care. In an extensive literature review, we found no related articles investigating Iranian nurses awareness and attitudes about providing such care. OBJECTIVES: The aims of this study were to investigate the awareness and attitudes of Iranian nurses in providing hospice care. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this descriptive-correlational study, 240 nurses employed in six educational centers were selected by non-randomized stratified sampling. The data collection instruments included an awareness test and attitudes regarding providing end of life care in hospice questionnaire. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and independent sample t-tests, one-way ANOVA, and Pearson correlation tests. RESULTS: The nurses' awareness score was 14.3 out of 29 and 55.7% of them stated that they had not received any education in providing end of life care. Also, by obtaining the score of 91.7 out of 120 the attitudes of participants in providing end of life care in hospices were positive. In addition, the highest attitudes score of nurses were in the dimensions of benefits of implementation and health care team. CONCLUSIONS: Considering low awareness of nurses about end of life care in hospices, continuing education should be provided for them in this regard. Especially, by considering the positive attitude of nurses, providing such programs could help develop hospice care in Iran.

Fear of Cancer Recurrence and its Predictive Factors among Iranian Cancer Patients.

CONTEXT: Fear of cancer recurrence (FOCR) is one of the most important psychological problems among cancer patients. In extensive review of related literature there were no articles on FOCR among Iranian cancer patients. AIM: The aim of present study was to investigation FOCR and its predictive factors among Iranian cancer patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this descriptive-correlational study 129 cancer patients participated. For data collection, the demographic checklist and short form of fear of progression questionnaire was used. Logistic regression was used to determine predictive factors of FOCR. RESULT: Mean score of FOCR among participants was 44.8 and about 50% of them had high level of FOCR. The most important worries of participants were about their family and the future of their children and their lesser worries were about the physical symptoms and fear of physical damage because of cancer treatments. Also, women, breast cancer patient, and patients with lower level of education have more FOCR. DISCUSSION: There is immediate need for supportive care program designed for Iranian cancer patients aimed at decreasing their FOCR. Especially, breast cancer patients and the patient with low educational level need more attention.