Nursing Students and End-Of-Life Care: A Play (Innovation CENTER‪)‬

Care providers often do not know what to say or how to act with patients who are dying. They may cope with their uncertainties by avoiding patients and failing to provide adequate physical and emotional care (Ferrell, Virani, Grant, Coyne, & Uman, 2000). Many do not feel they have been adequately trained for end-of-life (EOL) situations (Cohen, 2001; Deeny, Johnson, Boore, Leyden & McGaughan, 2001; Main, 2002), and lack of experience in caring for clients who are dying intensifies the problem (Main; Weigel, Parker, Fanning, Reyna & Gasbarra, 2007). Of all the health care professions, nurses are most likely to spend the last hours of life with hospitalized individuals. However, few nursing students are prepared to care for dying patients (Al-Sabwah & Abdel-Khalek, 2005-2006). Wass (2004) reports that "less than a fifth of students in the health professions are offered a full course on death" (p. 297).