Effect of an end‐of‐life gerontological nursing education programme on the attitudes and knowledge of clinical nurses: A non‐randomised controlled trial

Abstract

Aims To evaluate how a structured interactive two‐day education programme for clinical nurses on end‐of‐life (EOL) care for older people affects nurses’ attitudes and knowledge. Design Non‐randomised controlled trial. Methods Nurses were recruited separately for intervention and control groups. The intervention group assisted older patients with EOL care and recruited patients for the programme. To prevent sampling bias, control group nurses were recruited from a facility with numerous EOL care opportunities. The intervention was a two‐day educational programme. Using valid and reliable scales, we evaluated the attitudes (total score range: 26–130) and knowledge (total score range: 0–51) of the intervention group four times (pretraining, post‐training, 3 months, 6 months) and the control group three times (baseline, 3 months, 6 months) between January 2016 and April 2017. Analysis of covariance examined both groups’ score changes at 3 and 6 months while adjusting for confounding factors. Results Participants were 338 nurses caring primarily for older people (intervention group: 164; control group: 174); 142 responded at all measurement points. The change in mean value of the attitude scale from baseline to 3 months (differences in the groups’ attitude scores = 7.33; 95% CI = 2.43–12.24; p = .004) and 6 months (differences in groups’ attitude scores = 5.77; 95% CI = 0.17–11.37; p = .044) was greater in the intervention group. Moreover, the mean knowledge scale score change from baseline to 3 months was greater in the intervention group (differences in groups’ knowledge scores = 5.74; 95% CI = 4.07 to 7.39; p < .001). There was no evidence of a change in this score between baseline and 6 months. Conclusion The programme improved nurses’ medium‐ to long‐term attitudes and knowledge. Thus, it may help nurses enhance the quality of care they provide. Implications for practice A two‐day educational program improves nurses’ medium‐ to long‐term attitudes and knowledge on end‐oflife care. For quality end‐of‐life care for older people, a structured and evidence‐based educational program should be provided to nursing staff.

Preliminary Effect and Acceptability of an Intervention to Improve End-of-Life Care in Long-Term-Care Facilities: A Feasibility Study

“…Other multicomponent intervention studies using education or training had also reported improvement of staff attitude toward end-of-life care [ 21 , 23 , 28 ]. As previous studies have suggested that education regarding end-of-life care improves attitudes towards it [ 45 , 46 ], end-of-life care education, which is one of the components of this tool, could have contributed to the improvement of nurses’ attitudes in this study.…”

Developing a competence framework for gerontological nursing in China: a two-phase research design including a needs analysis and verification study

“…Additionally, nurses in these settings should emphasize their competence in pharmacotherapy [ 42 ]. For quality end-of-life care, a structured and evidence-based educational programme is recommended to nursing staff [ 30 , 43 ]. End-of-life care provision must be possible in settings such as hospitals, homes or community and rehabilitation placements [ 44 ].…”

“…The second trend is a willingness to collaborate with and to account for the needs of family members and informal caregivers. Because family members often become part of the healthcare team, nurses require skills and knowledge to involve family caregivers accordingly [30][31][32]. The third trend in gerontological nursing is a focus on health promotion and healthy ageing via disease prevention and a healthy lifestyle [28,33].…”