Identifying the antecedents and consequences of death anxiety amongst nurses by Meta Synthesis and Delphi Methods

Given the importance of the impact of this anxiety on human behavior and Focusing on the professional careers of employees who are constantly exposed to death reminders throughout the day, the aim of this study was to identify the causes of death anxiety and its consequences under the heading of the antecedents and consequences of death anxiety in the nursing community.  

The present study is of mixed type (quantitative and qualitative). The study population is Imam Hossein Hospital in Shahroud and the study samples are 17 experts (nurses of Intensive Care Unit and Emergency department). In the qualitative part, first, using content analysis and meta-synthesis method, the factors have been extracted and categorized, and then in a quantitative part, after distributing Fuzzy Delphi questionnaire in two levels, the criteria have been screened and prioritized.

In the qualitative section, after conducting a library research, 126 primary codes (66 antecedents and 60 consequences) were formulated in the form of 75 concepts (29 antecedents and 36 consequences). After analyzing the information, these concepts were classified into 42 primary themes (21 antecedents and 21 consequences), 14 basic themes (8 antecedents and 6 consequences) and 5 general categories (3 antecedents and 2 consequences). The result of analyzing the expertschr('39') response to their agreement with the identified concepts showed that a total of 27 antecedents and 26 antecedents were approved by nurses.

According to the ranking of factors, the results of this study indicate that more attention of the Human Resources Department to the antecedent factors plus regarding conscientiousness, high workload, night shifts and lack of social support can reduce the consequences of this kind of anxiety such as burnout, job stress, compassion fatigue and job dissatisfaction.