Abstract:

İntroduction: Neonatal nurses, who experience many challenging emotions while providing palliative care, must empathize with the patient and their family, maintain control, act neutrally and be understanding during the care process. Emotional labor levels of the neonatal nurses such as managing and being aware of their emotions, taking on determined roles, and acting according to predetermined standards even though they have much different feelings, are important in the palliative care process. The aim of this study is to determine the effect of emotional labor levels of neonatal nurses on their attitudes towards palliative care. Materials and Methods: This study was a correlational, cross-sectional and descriptive design and was conducted with 75 nurses employed in the neonatal intensive care units (NICU) in a provincial center in the north of Turkey. The data of the study were collected by using Personal Information Form, Emotional Labor Scale (ELS) and Neonatal Palliative Care Attitude Scale (NPCAS).The data were analyzed with SPSS 23. Descriptive statistics, non-parametric tests and Spearman correlation analysis were used in the evaluation of the data. Results: Among the NICU nurses, who participated in the study, 61.3% stated that they did not receive training in palliative care, and 84% did not find their knowledge about palliative care sufficient. A statistically significant and negative correlation was found between the surface acting sub-dimension of ELS and the resources sub-dimension of NPCAS (p=0.046); and a statistically significant and positive correlation was found between expression of naturally-felt emotions sub-dimension of ELS and the clinicians sub-dimension of NPCAS (p=0.005). Conclusion: In the present study, where the factors affecting the emotional labor of nurses were examined, it was observed that nurses suppressed their real emotions and acted superficially while providing the palliative care services. Despite the fact that the nurses displayed a positive attitude towards recognizing the neonatal palliative care practices and acting in cooperation, they stated that the institutional support was not sufficient.

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