Abstract
Background
End of life care in the emergency department is environmentally and culturally challenging.
The aim of this study was to determine Australian emergency department doctors and
nurses’ perceptions of their roles in providing end of life care in this environment.
Methods
Perceptions of end-of-life care roles were identified through semi-structured interviews
with doctors and nurses using Dieklemann’s seven interpretative stages of analysis
guided by phenomenological interpretive underpinnings (hermeneutics). Nine nurses
and seven doctors were recruited using purposive sampling. Organisations for emergency
doctors (Australasian College for Emergency Medicine: ACEM) and emergency nurses (College
of Emergency Nursing Australasia: CENA) were approached to advertise the study and
recruit participants across Australia via email.
Results
Results were categorised into four themes namely: role perception; the intensive nature
of the role; emotional burden; and role integration. The participants stated that
end of life care was provided according to their professional roles and responsibilities.
Doctors and nurses had distinct tasks, some of which overlapped. The accounts of the
participants in relation to their understanding of each other’s roles highlighted
differences in how nurses perceived the role of doctors, and vice versa. The participants
spoke about aspects that had an impact on their role of practicing end of life care
in the emergency department setting.
Conclusions
In this study, all participants expressed concern for dying patients in the emergency
department. The delivery of quality end of life care was believed to be paramount
and required staff to work together to achieve the best outcome for the dying patient
and their families. Regardless of the similarities and differences that were perceived
within their roles, the nurses and doctors believed that their main objective was
to ensure that comfort care was provided to dying patients.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: September 07, 2022
Accepted:
September 1,
2022
Received in revised form:
August 31,
2022
Received:
June 9,
2022
Identification
Copyright
© 2022 College of Emergency Nursing Australasia. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
