Effectiveness of an Educational Program on Hospital Nurses’ Attitudes and Barriers Regarding Truth-Telling to Terminally Ill Patients in Erbil City

Abstract

Background: Truth-telling to patients who are near death is a debatable and challenging topic in medical ethics. Providing patients with accurate information about their condition, especially when the news is unfavorable, such as a terminal diagnosis or a poor prognosis, is known as “truth-telling” in healthcare. Objective: to assess the effectiveness of an educational program on hospital nurses' attitudes toward truth-telling with terminally ill patients in Erbil City. Methods: A quasi-experimental study was conducted at four teaching hospitals in Erbil City. A non-probability (convenience) sample of 128 hospital nurses was selected, comprising 64 nurses in the intervention group and 64 nurses in the control group. Both groups completed a pretest, and only the intervention group received the educational program. For both groups, the post-test was given one month after the educational program. Results: There was a highly significant difference regarding hospital nurses’ attitudes toward truth-telling to terminally ill patients between the period before and after applying the educational program. In the intervention group, the majority of participants (73.2%) had neutral attitudes at the pre-test. After application of the educational program, most nurses (68.1%) expressed a positive attitude at the post-test. Common barriers among nurses include patients feeling hopeless and families requesting. Only a significant association was detected between nurses' attitudes and their gender. Conclusions: The study concluded that implementing the educational program resulted in an improvement in nurses' attitudes toward truth-telling with terminally ill patients.