Investigating the attitude of ambulance workers towards death

Introduction: Attitudes towards death are influencing factors for burnout, and there are various manifestations and subscales of this attitude (fear of death, death avoidance, neutral acceptance, approach acceptance, escape acceptance). Methods: The study was conducted between March 1, 2018, and February 28, 2019, among staff members of the “National Ambulance Service” and participants in the “National Ambulance Professionals of the Hungarian Chamber of Health Workers”. For the study, we used the revised version of the Death-Attitude Profile questionnaire (DAP-R), developed by Wong/Reker/Gesser. Previously there was no Hungarian version, so we completed the translation process. The incoming answers were analyzed using the SPSS 25.0 statistical program. Results: The translation process was successful. A total of 669 ambulance workers (emergency doctors, paramedics, ambulance technicians, ambulance nurses, ambulance drivers) participated in the study (male – n = 584, 87.3%, female – n = 83, 12.4%; mean age: 42.40 (SD = 10.41, range = 20–64)). Analyzing our database, the fear of death attitude subscale showed the smallest value (M = 2.77, SD = 1.30), and the neutral acceptance subscale (M = 5.86, SD = 1.22) showed the largest value. Conclusions: The translation of the DAP-R questionnaire conducted in the first part of our study can be used as a referential basis for further studies in Hungary. Comparing our results to other studies in the international literature, fear of death is also present, to a greater extent than expected, but the characteristic attitude is neutral acceptance.