Healthcare Workers' Perception and Coping with Death and Suffering in the Hospital Setting

Abstract

Introduction: Death and suffering are rarely central to hospital staff training. This gap has tangible consequences: inadequate communication, poorly supported families, and professionals accumulating emotional burnout they have no tools to manage.

Objective: To describe health care personnel's perceptions and coping strategies regarding suffering and death, and to estimate their acceptance of a thanatology module in a general secondary-level hospital.

Methods: Cross-sectional, descriptive, quantitative study. A self-administered electronic survey was applied to 259 health professionals (nursing, medicine, social work, and psychology) at Hospital General Tercer Milenio, using intentional sampling and descriptive statistical analysis.

Results: 74.9% of participants were women and 92.3% had cared for terminally ill patients. Yet only 53.7% felt capable of communicating a terminal diagnosis to a family, and just 25.5% knew specific tools for grief support. 79.2% considered specialized support necessary when anticipating imminent death, and 86.1% when notifying a death. 96.5% valued spiritual support as part of the thanatological process. Willingness to use a thanatology service reached 97.7%.

Conclusions: A significant gap exists between how often staff encounter end-of-life situations and how prepared they are to manage them. Support for establishing a thanatology module is near-universal. Consistent evidence in the field shows that inadequate training in these competencies leads to greater burnout, poor communication, and lower quality care for patients and families.

Recibido: 19/09/2025

Aprobado: 14/05/2026