Ms Peta Macgregor
1Student, Moe, Australia
Biography:
Peta is a palliative care nurse and Flinders University masters student. Over the past 20 years, she has worked across various care settings from the emergency department to aged care. Her deep interest in the existential and spiritual experience that patients, their loved ones and health care professionals have, in end-of-life care settings, has influenced the topic of this research project.
Abstract:
Background:
Death Bed Phenomena (DBP) defy definition. Described as transpersonal, comforting and deeply profound, these spectra of unusual and unexplainable phenomena occurring at, or around the time of death have been explored in contemporary and historical Australian literature from the perspectives of acute care nurses. Australia is an expansive country with a vast number of nurses who care for dying people. The voices and views of nurses who have had exposure to reports, or direct experience of, DBP while caring for people at end-of-life in Aged Care Homes and care settings located outside of urban centres and acute settings, remains unheard.
Aims:
This study aims to: 1. Gain further insight into the manner in which nurses view, and experience DBP, 2. Explore and describe the responses that nurses provide patients, patient’s loved ones and colleagues when engaged in discussions about DBP and 3. Support ongoing practice for optimum end of life care for people across all end-of-life care settings.
Methods:
Nurses will be recruited from across Australia via purposive sampling and snowball techniques through invitation via key professional organisations. Data collected from semi structured interviews will be thematically analysed.
Results:
Conducting this qualitative study will expand upon the existing knowledge base that our acute nursing colleagues have contributed to. Results will contribute to normalising attitudes about the commonality of DBP, enrich and deepen our understanding of DBP and initiate a dialogue with, and between nurses, which focuses on the person-centred nature of these experiences.
Conclusion:
Nurses facilitate dignified and meaningful experiences while caring for people at the end-of-life, and provision of such care goes beyond the acute care setting. Collective collegial experience across all palliative and end of life care settings will contribute to an enhanced, well supported and balanced perspective of the deeply meaningful experience of death bed phenomena.