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COMMENTARY
Commentary on Bailey C, Murphy R & Porock D (2011) Professional
tears: developing emotional intelligence around death and dying in
emergency work. Journal of Clinical Nursing 20, 3364–3372
Hamidah Hassan and Srijit Das
We enjoyed reading the published article entitled ‘Profes-
sional tears: developing emotional intelligence around death
and dying in emergency work’ (Bailey et al. 2011). This
article explores how the nurses in the emergency depart-
ment manage the emotional impact of death and dying in
emergency work and presents a model for developing
expertise in end-of-life care delivery. This paper also
focuses on the professional developmental processes in-
volved in effectively managing the critical aspects of death,
dying and bereavement. We wish to share a few scientific
facts related to the published topic.
The issues handled were: (i) management of the emotional
aspects of death, dying and bereavement in emergency
work; and (ii) lack of support and awareness, the emotional
labour that accompanies nursing care of the dying. Bereave-
ment can be intense and exhausting and can be seen to
require a great deal of support – including personal
awareness and coping strategies. We feel that over the
years, less attention has been paid to supporting emergency
nurses who deal with death and dying on a daily basis. If
not dealt with adequately, these issues can lead to occupa-
tional stress, ill-health and withdrawal from the nursing
practice (Stayt 2009).
In our personal experience, we have encountered situa-
tions when some nurses have shed tears when a patient has
died – often in the presence of relatives. These events
happen abruptly and even if one should say that nurses
should not cry, can anyone really control their emotions?
We think that preserving the ‘environment’ is important to
address this issue. We agree with Goleman (2001) who
identifies four main components of emotional intelligence,
identified self-awareness, self management, social awareness
and relationship management.
Sadness is usual, but the organisation should develop
adequate programs for handling this ‘potential environ-
ment’ created by the relatives. If nurses become less-
emotional, they may handle the emergency situation better.
Previous research on empathic anger in junior nursing
students found that the primary stressors during initial
clinical experience of the nurses originate from the issues
related to the performance and socialization (Gunther
2011). Could socialisation help in this regard? We
thank the authors for the meticulous work and the editor
for publishing such important topics related to clinical
practice.
Contributions
Study design: HH, SD; data collection and analysis: HH, SD
and manuscript preparation: HH, SD.
Conflict of interest
The authors have no conflict of interest to declare.
Authors: Hamidah Hassan, Department of Nursing, Universiti
Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre; Srijit Das, Associate Professor,
Department of Anatomy, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia
Correspondence Srijit Das, Associate Professor, Department of
Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia,
Jalan Raja Muda Abd Aziz, 50300 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Telephone: +60 006 03 92897263.
E-mail: [email protected]
� 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
1492 Journal of Clinical Nursing, 21, 1492–1493, doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2702.2011.04060.x
References
Bailey C, Murphy R & Porock D
(2011) Professional tears: developing
emotional intelligence around death
and dying in emergency work.
Journal of Clinical Nursing 20,
3364–3372.
Goleman D (2001) The Emotionally Intel-
ligent Workplace. Jossey-Bass, New
York, NY.
Gunther M (2011) Empathic anger in junior
nursing students. Journal of Nursing
Education 50, 242–247.
Stayt LC (2009) Death, empathy and self
preservation: the emotional labour of
caring for families of the critically ill in
adult intensive care. Journal of Clinical
Nursing 18, 1267–1275.
� 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Journal of Clinical Nursing, 21, 1492–1493 1493