Health education programme for nursing students regarding the monkeypox pandemic and the necessity for palliative care.

Aim: Assess the impact of an educational programme on nursing students' knowledge and attitudes toward the monkeypox pandemic and the necessity for palliative care.

Methods: A quasi-experimental study was conducted which involved 250 nursing students at Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University. A standardised, anonymous and closed-ended questionnaire about monkeypox was completed by the participants. Furthermore, a questionnaire to assess nursing students' knowledge of and attitude towards palliative care was also completed.

Results: Overall, the intervention group showed significantly higher scores than the control group in both knowledge of and attitudes towards monkeypox and palliative care. For monkeypox, the control group had a knowledge score of 45.43±6.29, while the intervention group scored 65.03±2.93. Attitude scores were 55.67±19 in the control group and 60.24±1.52 in the intervention group. For palliative care, the control group's knowledge score was 48.62±4.78, compared to 70.65±5.13 in the intervention group, and attitude scores were 34.12±25 versus 46.89±7.8, respectively.

Conclusion: Following implementation of the educational programme, there was an improvement in total knowledge and attitudes scores of the nursing students regarding the monkeypox pandemic and the palliative care required for patients.