Undergraduate Critical Care Nursing Students’ Knowledge And Attitudes Toward Caring Of Dying Patients

Abstract

Background Growth in the request for superiority end of life care have got palliative care (PC) emphasized as a national urgency, as well as the increasing prevalent provision of end of life care by nurses in critical care units. One of the important reasons inducing a successful provision of PC is nurses' knowledge and attitudes. So, there is a need to support and educate undergraduate critical care nursing students (UCCNSs) for obtaining high quality PC. The initial stage in formulating a strategy to educate UCCNSs about PC is to examine their current knowledge and attitudes. The aim: To examine UCCNSs' knowledge and attitudes toward caring of dying patients. Design: A descriptive design was followed. Setting: Subjects: 184 UCCNSs participated in the study. The students attended and studied critical care nursing II course during the period from September until January 2015. All students were studying emergency nursing, critical care nursing I and II courses. Also, they were trained in the same clinical areas during their studying these courses. Tools: Two instrument were used to describe knowledge and attitudes level, Palliative Care Quiz for Nursing (PCQN) & "Frommelt Attitude Toward the Care of the Dying Scale form B (FATCOD-B)". Results: Nearly two thirds (76.1%) of UCCNSs had poor knowledge level and the majority (82.61%) had fair total attitude score toward dying patients. Significant relationship between UCCNSs who reported having previous experiences with dying people and their total knowledge score. No significant relation between UCCNSs' attitude and their knowledge level. Conclusion: Most of UCCNSs lack some knowledge about PC but their attitude towards PC was fair. Combination of PC education within critical care nursing course is required. Recommendation: It is recommended to incorporate PC education within critical care nursing course to better prepare novel graduates for the inevitable care of a terminally ill patient.