Psychiatric nursing consultation: the use of an inservice model to assist nurses in the grief process.

This paper proposes that death is a situation which nurses face on a daily basis. Anxiety, depression, and hostility are defined as feelings common to nurses in working with dying patients. Anxiety and depression were significantly lowered in nurses who attended at least three of the five inservice sessions. Hostility levels did not significantly change. This paper also examines the role of the psychiatric nruse consultant in assisting staff nurses to improve the quality of care provided by examining their own emotional system. The consultant can act as faciltator of the group process so that nurses can continue to function independent of the consultant after the consulting process has ended. The psychiatric nurse consultant can utilize inservice curricula such as the one described above to produce affective change in nurses who work with dying patients, which has the potential to improve the quality of care given to the dying.