Nurses' personal death concerns and responses to dying-patient statements.

This study investigated the concept that a professional's awareness of concerns about her own death is helpful in the treatment of dying patients by using a fantasy of the subject's own life and death in relationship to her response to dying-patient statements. Data produced by this study supported this concept. The study also examined various defensive strategies to fear of death and their relationship to interactions with terminal patients. The defensive strategies were not found to contribute to the differential changes measured by this investigation.