Palliative Care Educational Interventions for Prelicensure Health-Care Students: An Integrative Review

Abstract

To provide adequate care, students from all health-care professions require education regarding palliative and end-of-life (EOL) care prior to entering professional practice. In particular, students need proper training to be equal members of interprofessional teams providing palliative and EOL care. However, limited information is currently available about the effectiveness of educational interventions relating to palliative and EOL care. Thus, an assessment of educational interventions to utilize in providing this education is warranted. The purpose of this integrative review was to critically evaluate the impact of palliative or EOL care interventional studies on learning outcomes for prelicensure health-care students. Articles published from 2001 to present that utilizied palliative or EOL care educational interventions for prelicensure students from any health-care profession and also evaluated preidentified learning outcomes were included in the review. The final sample comprised 34 articles. Four studies utilized interprofessional interventions, whereas the remaining taught students from a single profession. Trends in sample sizes, teaching interventions, learning outcomes, and outcome measures are discussed. Teaching interventions reviewed were primarily focused on student learning outcomes specific to knowledge and attitudes. Future studies should implement interprofessional educational interventions, utilize reliable and valid outcome measures, and evaluate their impact on different learning outcomes, such as self-efficacy, comfort, and communication.

Assessment of Knowledge and Attitudes Toward Palliative Care and End-of-Life Decision-Making in Saudi Arabia: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…For instance, 16.2% of participants believed that palliative care should only be introduced when the patient requests it. This misperception highlights an opportunity for educational interventions that emphasize the importance of early integration of palliative care alongside curative treatments [8][9][10].…”

Impact of Palliative and End of Life Care Interprofessional Education for Pre-licensure Healthcare Students: An Integrated Review

“…The authors therefore recommended developing programs suitable for those fields of study. Lippe et al 14 targeted a population of pre-licensure healthcare students and conducted an integrated review of palliative care educational interventions. The 34 selected trials demonstrated that educational intervention positively impacted students in both knowledge gained and attitude.…”

Development of a Primary Palliative Nursing Care Competence Model and Assessment Tool: A Mixed-Methods Study

“…Consequently, newly graduated nurses report feeling ill-prepared to care for patients with severe, life-limiting illness (Zheng et al, 2016). When provided during formal training, PPNC education can positively impact knowledge and attitudes among students in health disciplines (Glover et al, 2017; Kirkpatrick et al, 2019; Lippe & Becker, 2015; Lippe et al, 2018; Smothers et al, 2019).…”