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: drsrijit@gmail.com

� 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