Awareness of Palliative Care among Student Nurses in School of Nursing, Colombo

Abstract

Background: Palliative care (PC) consist of providing, comfort, support and quality of life to patients who are living with life threatening diseases. Each year there is forty million people who need palliative care. Objectives: To assess knowledge, skills and attitudes of palliative care among student nurses in School of Nursing (SON), Colombo. Methodology: The study was a descriptive cross-sectional study, conducted in the SON Colombo. Self-administered validated and pre-tested questionnaire was used to collect data from a convenient sample (n=137) of third year nursing students. It was prepared by the researcher according to the literature search and face validity of the questionnaire was done by subject experts. Sample calculation was done according to the Raosoft online sample size calculation method. Descriptive analysis was performed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20. Ethical clearance was obtained by the International Institute of Health Sciences (IIHS). Results and conclusions: Majority of the participants were female (96%). 100% of participants were Sinhalese. Mean age 23 yrs – 25 yrs (71%). According to the findings most (72.8 %) of the student nurses had satisfactory level of knowledge, 20.4% have good knowledge level and 6.8% have not heard about palliative care. Among the participants 50% had favorable attitudes and 50% had unfavorable attitudes about palliative care. When considering the practice of palliative care, 90.15% had experienced in terminal ill patient care, 64.12% had not discussed about the death of the patient, 79.41% felt uncomfortable when discussing about death, 97% had never experienced on PC practice. According to the finding of the study, more learning hours of palliative care should be added to the Diploma in nursing curriculum.