Emergency and Trauma Nursing

The nursing staff is in permanent contact with death throughout their working life. In addition, attention in the process of dying, to family members and to the patient, is considered part of the nursing role. Patient care at the end of life generates in the nursing professionals feelings and an attitude to death, as well as a stage of coping with the fact of losing a patient, that are very different among professionals.

Objective: To evaluate how a good training in palliative care and teaching techniques of coping with death to nurses, can help these health professionals to cope better with the death of patients and to have a healthier attitude to the patient dying process.

Material and methods: This bibliographical review was achieved through the search of scientific evidence in the PubMed, Google academic, LILACs and Cochrane Library databases of articles in the last five years and the critical

reading of them.

Results: The number of articles that relate training in palliative care and coping with death is insufficient to establish scientific evidence. However, articles found that the attitude and feelings to death by nurses are often negative or

indifferent. Furthermore, the nurses participating in these studies state that the teaching of coping techniques and training in care palliatives could improve these results.

Conclusion: Training in palliative care for nurses during their university period as well as training throughout their professional career should be greater