Student nurses' care of terrorists and their victims

Nurses are increasingly having to face the dilemma of nursing not only the victims of terrorist attacks but also the terrorist attackers. This study investigated the declared practical intentions of Israeli nursing students regarding their care of both victims and attackers and tried to identify which variables predicted the different intentions. A total of 306 students on a BA nursing program responded to the Priorities in Care Questionnaire, which asked for their responses to five vignettes in which the patient featuring in each vignette was either the victim of a terrorist attack, a terrorist, a criminal or a regular patient. With regard to patients in life-threatening situations, the students displayed no disparity of attitude. By contrast, when the patient was a terrorist and the condition was not life threatening, the students were likely to transfer care to a colleague or postpone their care. The variables found to predict intentions were sex, stage of training, work experience, religion, religiosity and political tendency.