Effect of palliative care guideline on nurses' knowledge, attitude, and practice at intensive care unit

Abstract

Background; Palliative care (PC) is specialized medical care for people living with a serious illness. PC is focused on providing relief from the symptoms and stress of the illness. The goal is to improve quality of life for both the patient and the family. Aim; This study aimed to evaluate the effect of palliative care guideline on nurses' knowledge, attitude and practice at intensive care unit. Design; Quasi experimental (pre/post test design) research design was used. Settings ; general intensive care unit and emergency ICU at Benha University Hospital. Subjects; A convenience sample of all available nurses who are working in previous settings (No= ).Tools ; I: Self-administered questionnaire for nurses to assess nurses'' knowledge regarding palliative care, II: attitude assessment scale and III: Nurses' observational Checklist to assess nurses „practices related to palliative care. Results; revealed that . of the studied nurses age less than thirty years old , . had technical nursing institute and . had an experience from < years. Regarding to total nurses' knowledge pre/post palliative care guideline. Only ( ) of the studied nurses had satisfactory level of total knowledge regarding palliative care pre palliative care guideline implementation, improved to ( ) post palliative care guideline. Regarding total attitude toward palliative care pre and post, of the studied nurses had poor attitude pre palliative care guideline, while post had good attitude. Concerning nurses „total practices of the studied nurses had competent level of practice pre palliative care guideline which improved to post implementation . Conclusion; palliative care guideline had a positive effect on improving nurses‟ knowledge, attitude and practice toward palliative care. Also, there were significant positive correlation between nurses‟ knowledge and practice pre and post palliative care guideline implementation and positive significant correlation between nurses‟ attitude and practice post palliative care guideline. Recommendations: Availability and accessibility of written palliative care guidelines in critical care units in order to update the nurses‟ knowledge improve practice and develop a positive attitude towards palliative care. A study was conducted to determine the palliative care knowledge and attitudes of the nursing workforce of King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre-Riyadh ,Saudi Arabia and any influencing factors. A questionnaire including demographic data, the Palliative Care Quiz for Nurses (PCQN), and Attitude Toward Care of the Dying scale (FATCOD) was completed by staff nurses from countries. The results indicate nurses had moderate attitudes towards palliative care but had insufficient knowledge regarding palliative care ( ). Another study entitled “ Knowledge, attitude, confidence, and educational needs of palliative care in nurses caring for non-cancer patients: a cross-sectional, descriptive study” founded that nurses‟ palliative care knowledge level was low and their attitude toward palliative care was moderate ( ). in mean post palliative care guideline intervention statistical differences. knowledge regarding palliative care pre palliative care guidelines implementation, while post implementation, most of had satisfactory level of total knowledge. improvement indicated that, palliative care guideline was a successful strategy to increase of nurses about palliative care. This result supported by Balicas, ,( study about effect of palliative care nursing knowledge in palliative care of hospital-based nurses caring for patients with chronic, serious illness" and stated a high in after brief