Knowledge and opinions of nursing students on palliative care: A university example

Abstract

Objectives: This study was conducted to determine the level of knowledge of nursing students about palliative care. Methods: The descriptive study was conducted with 324 graduate students who received training at a state university. Data were collected by using a questionnaire prepared by the researchers to determine the students' level of knowledge about palliative care and the notion of death. The analysis was performed using parametric and non-parametric tests on computers. Results: The average age of students was 20.56 ± 1.39, 82.7% of them were female, 16.4% graduated from Healthcare Vocational High School, and 40.1% of them were second grade students. The average palliative care knowledge score of students was calculated as 70.54 ± 11.01. The knowledge scores of female students were significantly higher than male students (p = 0.001), and the scores of the third-and fourth-year students were significantly higher than the second-year students (p = 0.001). The palliative care knowledge scores of the respondents who defined the concept of death as "a new beginning for eternal life, rebirth" were significantly lower than those who defined it as "the end of life" (p = 0.02). Conclusions: It was found that the average palliative care score of students is above the intermediate level, and the scores are affected by gender, level of knowledge, age, grade, having received palliative care training, having provided care to patients in the terminal stage and defining ways of death.

Palliative care knowledge among final year medicine & health sciences students: a cross-sectional study

“…In terms of the knowledge on the need of palliative care, the majority were aware that palliative care is appropriate for metastatic cancer with uncontrolled pain and endstage heart failure. This is similar to a study conducted with nursing students, which found that most of them were aware that palliative care is needed for advanced stage chronic diseases, terminally ill patients, patients with advanced stage chronic diseases, and cancer patients with chronic diseases [14]. However, a recent study reported students wrongly assumed that palliative care is needed in acute postoperative pain as the students were unable to differentiate between pain medicine and palliative medicine [13].…”

“…The majority of the students were shown to have an average and above knowledge level on palliative care. The finding is similar to the level of knowledge among physiotherapy students in Nigeria [13] and nursing students in Turkey [14]. This could be attributed by the usage of the same outcome measures and similar experience and the level of study of the participants (Year 4 students), where the more "senior" students are a strong predictor of higher knowledge about palliative care [15].…”

Spanish Nurses’ Knowledge about Palliative Care. A National Online Survey

“…This fact is also identified in studies exploring educational needs in palliative care for both students and professionals. Indeed, both groups refer to the need for training in these psychosocial aspects of palliative care [ 16 , 23 , 48 , 49 , 71 , 72 , 73 , 74 , 75 ].…”

Perception of Nurses’ Knowledge about Palliative Care in West Bank/ Palestine: Levels and Influencing Factors

“…This fact suggested the educational need for these aspects in palliative care for both students and nurses, which can be met by conducting training courses on all aspects of palliative care. 53,54 Concerning selected socio-demographic influencing factors, our study suggested that younger age was an influencing factor for knowledge about palliative care. This study suggested that the younger nurses had more knowledge about palliative care compared with older.…”