Determining The Care for The Dead Patients and Their Famillis Provided by Intensive Care Nurses

Purpose: The presence of patients who with high risk, have complicated and serious problems in intensive care units causes the feeling of facing death to be experienced frequently. This study aimed to determine the nursing care provided for the dead patients and their families by intensive care nurses.

Method: This study was conducted as a descriptive method with 114 nurses working at adult intensive care units of three hospitals in Istanbul. Data were collected by questionnaire form. Data were evaluated by percentage, chi-square and yates test.

Results: The study was founded that the nurses applied most of interventions on body care of dead patients. It was determined that almost half of the nurses (49.1%) did not give the opportunity to their families to say good-by to the patients and 94.7%did not let patient’s families take an active role in patient care. The nurses who graduated from vocational school of health and worked between 0 - 5 years in the intensive care unit were found more frequently separating the dead patient from the other patients with screen or curtain. This result was found statistically significant.

Conclusion: The study was showed that intensive care nurses applied the proper post-mortem care. However, it was found that nurses did not incorporate their families to the patient’body care enough and not provided emotional support to their families adequately.