Impact of the educational session on knowledge and attitude toward palliative care among undergraduate medical, nursing, and physiotherapy students: a comparative study

Abstract

Objective: To compare the attitude and knowledge of palliative care among the undergraduates of medical, nursing and physiotherapy before and after an educational session on palliative care. Materials and Methods: A pre-validated 20-point questionnaire on attitude and knowledge of palliative care was distributed to second year medical (22), nursing (28) and physiotherapy (20) students before and after an educational session on palliative care and the results were compared within and in between the groups. Results: Paired t test was used for within the group and One-way Anova for in between the group comparison. All groups showed statistically significant (P < 0.05) improvement in knowledge, attitude and pain management scores following palliative care educational session. The pre-educational session evaluation showed that physiotherapy students had better knowledge and attitude about palliative care which was statistically significant (P < 0.05), followed by nursing and medical students. Pre-educational assessment of knowledge about pain management was similar among the three groups statistically (P > 0.05). After post-educational session evaluation, the mean improvement in palliative care knowledge scores was more in medical, followed by physiotherapy and nursing students. On inter-group comparison, statistically significant improvement in knowledge scoring was seen in medical and physiotherapy students (P < 0.05) followed by nursing students. Statistically similar improvement in the attitude and pain management towards palliative care scores was seen in all the three groups (P > 0.05). Conclusion: Significant improvement was seen in attitude and basic knowledge about palliative care in the students following educational session and therefore including palliative care in the curriculum enables them to deliver appropriate end-of-life care to the patients.