Palliative Care Education: Its Effect on Nurses’ Competency during Care of Dying Patients

Background: Palliative care can play a major role in relieving both physical and mental
symptoms of the dying patient. Nurses are the key valuable palliative care team members who
are responsible for the dimension of physical, functional, social, and spiritual patients' care.
Essential factors affecting a successful implementation of palliative care are nurses'
knowledge, attitude and self efficacy for providing care to these patients. Aim of the study:
To examine impact of palliative care education on nurses’ competency during care for dying
patients. Methods: A quasi-experimental design was utilized. Setting: The study was
conducted at oncology institute, general medical and general surgical unit of Menoufia
University hospital. Subjects: A convenience sample of 120 nurses (52 from oncology
institute, 34 from general medical and 34 general surgical unit) of Menoufia University who
agreed to participate in this study were divided alternatively and randomly into two equal
groups, 60 for group 1 and 60 for group 2.Tools: four tools were utilized by the researchers.
Tool I: Structural interviewing questionnaire, Tool II: Palliative Care Quiz for Nursing, Tool
III: The Frommelt Attitudes Toward Care of the Dying scale and Tool IV: The Palliative Care
Self-Efficacy Scale. Results: the mean total score of Palliative Care nurses’ knowledge in
study group (16.48±1.88)was better than control group (7.23± 2.68), nurses' attitude toward
palliative care of study group was 113.50±10.75 as compared to 91.21±12.40of control group < /div>
and palliative care self-efficacy score of study group was 28.06±7.38 as compared
to16.08±4.49 of control group at post-intervention. Conclusion: palliative care educational
intervention to nurses can be effective in strengthening their knowledge base, improving
attitude and level of self efficacy toward care of dying patient. Recommendations: Education
and training programs about palliative care with simple illustrated booklet required for all
nursing staff in health care setting