Ansiedad y miedo ante la muerte en los profesionales sanitarios de los servicios de urgencias hospitalarios en Aragón

Objectives

To describe the levels of anxiety in the face of death in professionals from emergency hospital services of Aragon. To analyze its association with sociodemographic, perception and labor variables.

Methodology

Observational, descriptive and cross-sectional study. Population and context of the study were health professionals of the hospital emergency services of Aragon. A non-probabilistic sampling selection was applied (n = 230 participants). The “Collet-Lester-Fear-of-Death-Scale” instrument was introduced to measure death anxiety. The data was collected with a self-applied telematic questionnaire. Descriptive and inferential statistics were performed to analyze the association between the study variables.

Results

Anxiety in the face of death mean values of 94,58 ± 21,66 with 95% CI: (91,76-97,39) (scale range: 28-140 points) were obtained. A significant association was obtained with the variables professional category (physicians, medical residents, nurses, and nursing assistants) (p: 0,006), sex (p: 0,001), level of training in emotional self-management (p: 0,03), self-perceived level of mental health (p: 0,07) and perception of lack of support from palliative care/mental health professionals (p: 0,006). This association was not obtained with the variables age (Sig.: 0.558), total professional experience (p: 0.762) and in emergencies (p: 0.191).

Conclusion

The levels of anxiety in the face of death in the emergency hospital services are lower than those presented in other hospital units. Variables such as professional category, degree of training in emotional self-management and self-perceived level of mental health are related to levels of anxiety in the face of death and their study requires further work.