Near death experiences: critical care nurses' attitudes and interventions

A patient is successfully resuscitated after a trauma or serious illness. It is increasingly common for such a patient to report having experienced a feeling of calm and peace, a feeling of being separated from the body, and/or a sense of moving through a dark tunnel ending at a bright light. Such experiences are known as near death experiences. What are critical care nurses to make of such accounts reported to them by their patients? This article explores critical care nurses' interests in, knowledge of, and attitudes towards the near death experience, and it identifies nursing interventions that critical care nurses can use during and after the patient experiences near death.