Dignity at the End of Life: the nursing student's perspective

Abstract

According to official statistics, more and more people are dying from chronic and oncological diseases, dragging the last days of life into health institutions. In this sense, the discussion about the defence of the dignity of the patient at the end of life has often gone hand in hand with the discussion of euthanasia. We carried out an exploratory study of a qualitative nature, with the aim of identifying the situations that, in the opinion of nursing students, can lead to the loss of dignity of the terminally ill patient and the reasons that can lead them to request euthanasia. The sample consisted of 55 undergraduate nursing students, and the data was collected using a questionnaire consisting mainly of open questions. The data was processed using content analysis following the procedures described by Bardin. The main results indicate that the situations that can lead patients to feel a loss of dignity are loss of autonomy, abandonment, suffering, lack of respect, pity and loss of self. The reasons for evoking euthanasia are suffering, loss of autonomy, loss of hope, being a burden on the family and loss of meaning.