How do nurses deal with death

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How to Cope with Loss As a Nurse 7 years ago. Don't Miss a Post! Enter Your Email. Search for:. S in Occupational Therapy Assistant. Select an Answer I have graduated as a registered nurse I am new to nursing. It takes me a while to process and deal with it later and my emotions don't tend to come up till later on.

I honestly think the most stressful and emotionally taxing part of dealing with patient death is being there for their families, and this is something that's very important. I honestly feel like we don't get enough education or practice with this part because we're there for treatment and I know how to take care of patients. I know how to do ACLS. I know what to do to save them. But when we can't save them, what comes after that is dealing with the family while they say goodbye to their loved one.

We're there with them afterwards while they're grieving. That's the hardest thing for me in my career. It was the hardest thing for me to get used to from the beginning, and I always thought the actual scenario of trying to save somebody or them passing away would be the hardest. For me, it's actually the emotional part of dealing with the remaining family members who are just grieving and so upset.

I think a lot of that is because I'm a very empathetic person. I've always been that way. It's extreme to the point where I have trouble even getting upset at people or mad at people who do stuff wrong to me because I can put myself in their shoes.

Anyway, that's a whole other subject. But if you're in health care, chances are you're probably a very empathetic person anyway. You entered this career field to help people, so you probably feel pretty similarly to me when it comes to feeling the pain of others or wanting to help others, wanting to stop others from feeling pain, and sometimes you just can't do that and that's really hard.

My 1 piece of advice in dealing with the families is it's okay to be silent. I always used to feel like I need to say something when a tragic situation was going on. I was in the room with a family who's saying bye to their dead loved one and I felt like I should be saying something or talking to them, trying to console them, but there's nothing you can really say to help them. There's nothing you can say to take their pain away. Sometimes just being there, handing out tissues, trying to hand out waters or anything you can to just make them a little more comfortable is all you can do.

Sometimes people just need a hug. Not everybody is a hugger, but sometimes family members just want you to be there with them. Sometimes they need a hug, a shoulder to cry on, and you can be that person. You don't always need to be saying something. Don't be scared of saying the wrong thing.

Don't be worried that you're not saying enough. Honestly, there is no right answer here, and all you can do is what feels right. Oftentimes, for me, I found that that's silence and waiting for them to start talking.

If they talk and initiate and want to have a conversation more about what's happening, I'm there and I'll talk to them as well. The second piece of advice I have I'm not saying one of these is more important than the other.

But the second thing I would say is please try not to blame yourself and try and find things wrong with what you did when somebody dies in your care. We've tried everything we can to save somebody. Their body couldn't handle it, and it was just time for them to go, even though it doesn't feel like it's time and doesn't feel like it's right.

There's nothing that you could have done, not one thing specifically that you could have done or changed what you did, or change the timing is something usually that would have saved that person. There's too much, too many factors going on, so try not to blame yourself, try not to replay scenarios over and over again in your head blaming yourself.

Now, there's a healthy way to approach a scenario and see what you could have done better. That's usually done in a group setting with everybody else who was involved in the situation and a manager or somebody like that, going over the code. This is an educational experience. Sitting at home, beating yourself up, and thinking about the time that you gave epinephrine or the rate of your compressions or something like that is not going to help you.

It's not going to help save the patient. It's just going to drive you crazy, so please try not to do that to yourself. I know a lot of newer nurses or younger nurses that are dealing with death for the first time tend to do that. Meta-aggregation was used to synthesise the findings of the included studies. Results: This systematic review aggregated ten categories from the sixteen qualitative studies included, and then two synthesised findings were derived: intrinsic resources and extrinsic resources.

The intrinsic resources consisted of setting boundaries, reflection, crying, death beliefs, life and work experience, and daily routines and activity. The extrinsic resources were comprised of talking and being heard, spiritual practices, education and programmes, and debriefing.

Conclusion: This systematic review synthesised the findings about what resources nurses use when coping with patient death and made recommendations on future directions.