The experiences of nursing students for caring dying patients: a systematic review

Aim. The study was to synthesize qualitative researches on the experiences of nursing students when deliver care to the dying patients.Background. Nurses play important roles in caring the dying patients and their families. Difficulties students confronting when facing the dying patients challenge the quality of death education in nursing curriculum. Better understanding the experiences of students would enhance teachers' ability in helping students. More and more researches focus on the students' experiences to explore the feelings and views of the students when delivering terminal care. Design. Meta-synthesis. By using keywords nursing students, experience, care, end-of-life and dying, the search strategy was to find relative studies published between 2005-2017 in MEDLINE, CINAHL, Science Direct, OVID, and Chinese Academic Database. Two independent reviewers assessed the quality of retrieved papers, using the Qualitative Assessment and Review Instrument (QARI). Results. 31 full papers were assessed, 19 studies were included in this meta-synthesis. Conclusion. The systematic review indicated when caring for the dying, nursing students undertook great pressures which came from unskilled nursing techniques, insufficient communicating abilities, and inadequate acceptance for death. Nursing educators should equip students with more knowledge about the dying symptom control, trust students in supplying them more chances to deliver care for the dying, and train students in communication skills. Students appreciated to be the witness of caring power, understood the meaning of nursing career and found out the importance of reflection on their own life and death.