Conflict Experienced by Nurses Providing End-of-life Care in Emergency Departments in Japan.

Saving lives is the first priority in emergency departments. However, it is important to provide end-of-life care (EOLC) for patients and their families in these departments when the patient's life cannot be saved. Existing work reporting the obstacles and difficulties of nursing practice has found that the perceptions of nurses who provide EOLC include distress and conflict. The primary aims of this study were (i) to clarify the structure of the conflict experienced by nurses providing EOLC in emergency departments and (ii) to explore factors influencing this experience of conflict. A questionnaire survey was conducted among nurses working in emergency departments in Japan. The participants were sampled using a random sampling design. In total, 290 (55.3%) nurses responded to the survey and 288 (55.0%) responses were usable for the analysis. Seven components comprising 31 items were identified: (1) conflict about ability to practice EOLC; (2) conflict about relationships with the medical team; (3) conflict about the environment for EOLC; (4) conflict about decision making; (5) conflict about family nursing; (6) conflict about patients' pain; and (7) conflict about medical limitations. The nurses' individual backgrounds and support systems were found to influence their experience of conflict. To support nurses providing EOLC in emergency departments, we need to understand the conflict they experience, including how their backgrounds affect this experience, and construct a system that incorporates support from the specialized field of EOLC.