Attitudes of doctors and nurses towards suffering

Wyniki badań przedstawione w pracy potwierdzają postawioną przez autorki hipotezę, zakładającą związek między doświadczeniem własnego cierpienia u lekarzy i pielęgniarek a późniejszymi ich postawami w stosunku do ich cierpiących pacjentów. Wynika z tego, że jeśli osoba opiekująca się cierpiącym sama wykaże akceptację wobec faktu cierpienia, to pomoże choremu pogodzić się z zaistniałą w jego życiu sytuacją. Ponadto w oparciu o badania Kwestionariuszem Postaw Wobec Cierpienia Makselona, wykazano pozytywne postawy zarówno lekarzy, jak i pielęgniarek wobec cierpienia, wskazujące na istnienie przewagi komponenty postawy poznawczo-emocjonalnej nad behawioralną.

The world of suffering is extremely varied in its structure, dimensions and consequences. It refers to each of us in a different way according to our personal sensitivity and the structure of personality. However, it often happens that while experiencing suffering we feel crushed with its suddenness and strength. There are many attitudes to suffering. Everybody suffers in their own unique way, which is conditioned by an individual hierarchy of values. The aim of this research was to get to know the attitude of doctors and nurses to their own and other people’s suffering and to recognise those aspects of life which have an influence on creating those attitudes in groups under research. In connection with all this, some research hypotheses were proposed assuming adoption, of positive attitudes to suffering in which the emotional component and relation between own experience of suffering by doctors and nurses and the subsequent attitudes of therapeutic team predominate. To conduct the research a questionnaire which contains questions about the demographic and problematic character referring to opinions of own suffering experienced by those under research and attitude to the patients was individually elaborated. The research was conducted in a group of 40 doctors and 40 nurses. As a result of the research the positive attitudes to suffering have been proved among both doctors and nurses. However, among nurses, some predominance of emotional component has been noticed. There is predominance of the cognitive-emotional component over the behavioural in the whole group under research.