McCallum Amanda, McConigley Ruth
High Dependency Area, Royal Perth Hospital, East Perth, Western Australia 6001, Australia.
Int J Palliat Nurs. 2013 Jan;19(1):25-30. doi: 10.12968/ijpn.2013.19.1.25.
Nurses in critical care areas play a vital part in providing end-of-life care and recognise that an ideal death should be peaceful, dignified, and comfortable. However, environmental restrictions in critical care units can make a peaceful death unachievable and can have a profoundly negative impact on end-of-life care.
To describe the provision of end-of-life care in an open high-dependency unit.
A descriptive exploratory approach was used involving semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample of five registered nurses working in the high-dependency area at a major teaching hospital. The interviews were audiotaped and transcribed. Thematic analysis was used to code the data and identify themes.
Three themes emerged from the data. The core theme was 'the nurse as protector'. The two other themes were 'conflict of care' and 'peace and quiet'. Within these themes, characteristics of an ideal death were identified and barriers to providing an ideal death were acknowledged.
This study illustrates nurses' perceptions of caring for dying patients in an open critical care unit. This environment influences the development of the nursing role as protector and presents barriers to achieving an ideal death.
重症监护领域的护士在提供临终关怀方面发挥着至关重要的作用，并认识到理想的死亡应该是平静、有尊严且舒适的。然而，重症监护病房的环境限制可能使平静的死亡无法实现，并可能对临终关怀产生深远的负面影响。
描述开放式高依赖病房中临终关怀的提供情况。
采用描述性探索性方法，对一家大型教学医院高依赖区的五名注册护士进行了有目的抽样的半结构化访谈。访谈进行了录音和转录。采用主题分析法对数据进行编码并确定主题。
数据中出现了三个主题。核心主题是“护士作为保护者”。另外两个主题是“护理冲突”和“安静平和”。在这些主题中，确定了理想死亡的特征，并认识到提供理想死亡的障碍。
本研究阐述了护士对开放式重症监护病房中临终患者护理的看法。这种环境影响了护士作为保护者角色的发展，并为实现理想死亡带来了障碍。
