Actitudes y afrontamiento hacia la muerte en estudiantes de medicina de la Facultad de Ciencias Médicas de la Universidad de Cuenca. Año 2018.

Abstract

Background: nowadays death tends to be seen as an objective, biological and individual data, whose conception is strongly linked to medical advances and the modernization around health and disease. Objective: to determine the attitudes and coping towards death in medical students of the Faculty of Medical Sciences of the University of Cuenca, year 2018. Methodology: observational, quantitative, descriptive, transverse cohort study. A data collection form was applied to 648 students who met the inclusion criteria. Data were presented using custom tables, frequencies, percentages, and percentiles were applied. Results: 648 students participated, with ages between 18 and 22 years in 67.4%, 61.4% were women, 93.8% single, 94.8% Mestizo, 88.3% residents in urban areas, 74.5% were Catholics, 26.7% were in their third year of medicine. As for attitudes, 75.2% had acceptance of approach, 14.7% neutral, 7.7% showed fear of death and less often were evidenced attitudes of avoidance and escape with 1.4% and 1.1% respectively. With respect to coping 31% showed a bad coping with death, while in 37.8% was neutral and in 31.2% good coping. Conclusion: the approach to death was the predominant attitude, however, the majority of participants had a neutral coping with death