Universiti Malaysia Terenggan Journal of Undergraduate Research ISSN: 2637-1138 Volume 1 Number 1, January 2019 ©Penerbit UMT A QUALITATIVE STUDY ON PSYCHOLOGICAL WELLBEING OF NURSES WORKING IN PALLIATIVE WARD NELAVATHI A/P MARIMUTHU 1 , SITI SALINA ABDULLAH 1,2* 1 School of Social and Economic Development, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, 21030 Kuala Terengganu, Terengganu, 2 Institute of Tropical Biodiversity and Sustainable Development, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, 21030 Kuala , Terengganu. Corresponding author: ctsalina@umt.edu.my Abstract: The main purpose of this research is to understand the experiences and psychological wellbeing of nurses working in palliative ward. There were two research questions driving this research throughout the process of data collection and data analysis. Four nurses from the palliative ward participated in this research to provide details on their psychological wellbeing. Semi- structured interview questions together with observation and simple survey questions were used to gather the data. Thematic analysis was used to identify the meaningful themes for each research question. Six main themes were identified: autonomy, environmental mastery, positive relation, personal growth, self- acceptance and purpose in life. The findings are highly relevant with the theory and literature. The findings indicate that the participants have good psychological wellbeing due to their huge experiences in palliative ward. Keywords: Nurses, wellbeing, palliative ward, qualitative research Introduction In today’s health care system, nurses are prone to a series of stress and depression while working with patients. When compared to other health service providers, nurses face greater stress, and unmanageable stress leads to burnouts, poor quality of care and high turnover among nurses in health care settings (Purohit and Vasava, (2017). According to Sharma et al. (2016), nurses play a significant direct role in delivering high quality service to patients, and nursing is as a complex profession that comprises both emotional and physical labour. Nurses also act as communicators, advocators, educators and caregivers to improve the health of patients in the best way possible. It is essential for nurses who are working in healthcare to have a stress-free attitude or good stress management skills because they are in an ideal position to enhance patient’s resilience and empowerment, especially for nurses in palliative care (Ruddick, 2013). Palliative care was introduced to provide support and improve the quality of life of patients and their family. Palliative care intends to support patients with chronic health problems to live as actively as possible until their death (Sue, Hristina, & Higginson, 2011). In dealing with the issues, palliative care faces several barriers such as lack of awareness, lack of professional training and effectiveness. This indicates that it is important to pay attention to nurses in the healthcare setting who are facing challenges while performing their duties. Focusing on nurses’ psychological well-being while they are working in the healthcare system (palliative care) is important in order to understand this phenomenon accurately as their experience working in the healthcare setting may differ and thus their stressor and stress management skills cannot be the same. Therefore, this study intends to understand nurses’ psychological well - being while they provide support and services to patients in a palliative ward. Materials and Methods Population and Sample In Malaysia, only several hospitals have palliative care and services including in-patient palliative care, consultative palliative care and community palliative care. This type of research targets nurses who act as caregivers to patients in a palliative ward in order to obtain information to achieve the research objectives. Hence, in this study, the targeted population was nurses working in palliative wards in hospitals throughout Malaysia, specifically palliative care nurses in Hospital Kuala Lumpur. The sample for this study was chosen from the palliative ward in Hospital Kuala Lumpur. Hospital Kuala Lumpur is one of the hospitals that has attached in-patient palliative ward together with its special palliative professionals. Hospital Kuala Lumpur also has its own facilities and a conducive environment for the patients. Even though other hospitals have palliative care, most do not have an in-patient ward. Therefore, the palliative ward in Hospital Kuala Lumpur provided a better chance of getting access to experienced nurses to explore their psychological well-being. At the time of the study, there was a large number of nurses working in Hospital Kuala Lumpur’s palliative ward including senior nurses and new nurses.