The Nurses' Knowledge and Attitudes towards the Palliative Care

Abstract

Background: Palliative care (PC) is an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problem associated with life-threatening illness through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification, impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems like physical, psychosocial and spiritual.  Palliative care is traditionally viewed as being the intense care of a patient who is close to death. In recent years, the scope of palliative care has expanded to include patients who may live for many years with end stage organ failure or cancer. Aim of the Study: The study aimed to assess the nurses' knowledge and attitudes towards PC among nurses working in selected hospitals in Northern districts, Palestine. Subjects and methods: Descriptive, cross sectional study was used for conducting the study, A purposive sample consisted of 96 nurses invited to participate in the study. Data collected through; nurses’ socio-demographic characteristic, knowledge level, and Attitude level towards PC which is developed by the researchers. Validity and pilot study were examined . Results: Study results have shown that 20.8 % of the respondents had good overall knowledge towards PC, 59.4 % had training of palliative care, and 6.2 % of participants had good attitude towards PC. There was a significant difference between Nurses' qualification, experience, and training of palliative care towards Knowledge of PC. Conclusion: The nurses had poor knowledge, but their attitude towards PC was moderate. Recommendations are that due attention should be given towards PC by the national health policy and needs to be incorporated in the national curriculum of nurse education.

Keywords: Knowledge, Nurses, Palliative care.