Abstract · Our cross-sectional questionnaire research examines attitudes towards death, fear of death and their correlates, explores emotions, thoughts connected to dying and death, and end-of-life decisions by comparing two different nursing approaches among Hungarian nurses working in intensive care units (ICU) and in hospice care. According to the results, accepting death as an escape was more typical for those working in hospice care, while avoiding death was more typical for those working in intensive care units, and there was no significant difference in conscious fear of death. Accepting death is more typical among religious nurses and those who believe in the afterlife. ICU nurses are more troubled by the death of a close relative than hospice nurses, who are more likely to see the time of dying as an opportunity for fairwell. In connection with the discontinuation of life-support treatments, hospice nurses are more likely to switch to palliative therapy, while ICU nurses emphasize better the rights of patients. There was no difference in life satisfaction, however, psychosomatic symptoms that increase the risk of burnout are more characteristic of the intensive care unit workers. In the study of parenting-related memories, the higher the proportion of parental rejection and overprotecting behaviour is, the higher is the scale of psychosomatic symptoms. The less warm the parenting style is on behalf of the mother and father, the greater is the number of symptoms related to burnout syndrome. ICU nurses are more likely to have experienced parental rejection than hospice nurses. The childhood family pattern showed a significant positive correlation with the pattern experienced as an adult. This is problematic in disadvantaged patterns, as it may be related to insufficient coping strategies which dispose one to depressive or neurotic diseases on the long-term.

Abstract · By going beyond the first stage of perinatal mourning, the efforts to find the 'meaning’ behind past events become central in the thinking of people experiencing a significant loss. (Why did it happen to me/to us? What did I do right/wrong? etc.) Since this ’meaning’ refers not merely to the cause of the infant's death in the medical sense, but also to the search for deep psychological and spiritual reasons, finding meaning becomes a step not only towards solace but also towards post-traumatic growth (PTG). PTG is not the direct consequence of the loss but the result of subsequent cognitive processing. In my study, I share my experiences on PTG deriving from conversations with parents who have lost a child.