Comparison of the mourning process of relatives of patients who received internal medicine intensive care and palliative care
Gönül Düzgün1, Mehmet Uzun2, Ömercan Topaloğlu3, Emin Taşkıran4, Timur Köse5, Harun Akar4
1İzmir Tepecik Eğitim ve Araştırma Hastanesi, Palyatif Bakım Birimi, İzmir, Türkiye
2Siirt Kurtalan Devlet Hastanesi, Dahiliye Kliniği, Siirt, Türkiye
3İnönü Üniversitesi Endokrinoloji Bilim Dalı, Malatya, Türkiye
4İzmir Tepecik Eğitim ve Araştırma Hastanesi, Dahiliye Kliniği, İzmir, Türkiye
5Ege Üniversitesi Tıp Fakültesi Biyoistatistik ve Tıbbi Bilişim Anabilim Dalı, İzmir, Türkiye
Keywords: Intensive care; mourning process; palliative care.
Abstract
Objectives: This study aims to evaluate how the palliative care unit, that operates at our hospital, affects the mourning process of the patients’ relatives and how it contributes to coping with the mourning process; it is also aimed to asses if there is a meaningful difference between the psychological states of patients’ relatives who lost their lives in internal medicine intensive care unit and in palliative care unit or not; and it is aimed to determine the level of awareness about the concept of palliative care and to make necessary arrangements as needed in this context.
Patients and methods: Between June 2013 and January 2014, a total of 20 people were included in the study, who lost their relatives while admitted to either palliative care unit or internal medicine intensive care unit, and who agreed to participate in the study at Izmir Tepecik Research and Training Hospital. The surveys were conducted by face-to-face interview method. Person Identifying Form, designed by a researcher, as well as Two Dimensional Mourning Scale, Beck Depression Scale and Beck Anxiety Scale were used to gather data.
Results: There was no statistically significant difference about the sociodemographic features between the two groups of relatives of patients (p>0.05). Although the depression levels of relatives of patients who received palliative care were higher when compared to the depression levels of relatives of patients who received internal medicine intensive care, but this difference was not statistically significant (p>0.05). Anxiety levels of relatives of patients who received palliative care was higher than the relatives of patients who received internal medicine intensive care and this difference was statistically significant (p<0.05).
Conclusion: As the patients’ quality of life increases with the service provided at the palliative care unit, we thought that the hope of patients’ relatives increases that the patients can recover. Since the patients’ relatives expect the death of the patients more, who are admitted to the internal medicine intensive care unit, we thought that this difference might be due to the different units the patients were admitted to.