Impact of a community-based educational intervention on the knowledge of palliative care: a pretest-posttest study

Abstract

Introduction: In Spain, there are between 300,000 and 370,000 people with palliative care needs. The current challenge is to combat inequities in access to palliative care resources in rural areas through training, greater provision of material and human resources, and the involvement of health system managers. Emphasizing the role of the community nurse as the main exponent of care together with the role of community interventions. Objective: To determine the effectiveness of a community-based educational intervention on caregiving skills for informal caregivers in rural areas. Methods: A quasi-experimental study was carried out with a pretest-posttest design and a control group, based on an educational community intervention developed in a rural area of southeastern Spain. The participants were selected by convenience; they were informal caregivers of persons with palliative needs. A total of 80 subjects were included (40 in the experimental group and 40 in the control group). The Palliative Care Knowledge Scale (PaCKS), abbreviated as the Zarit scale, quality-of-life scale (EuroQol-5D), and Goldberg Anxiety Scale were used to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention. Repeated-measures ANOVA was used to assess the differences in scale scores. The EQUATOR checklist “Transparent Reporting of Evaluations with Nonrandomized Desings” (TREND) was used. Results: The educational intervention significantly improved palliative care knowledge (p = 0.007), reduced anxiety/depression (p = 0.035), and increased self-perceived health (p = 0.018) in the experimental group. In addition, caregiver overload decreased, whereas these variables worsened overall in the control group. Conclusion: Educational intervention for caregiver knowledge of palliative care improved the health and well-being of the study participants, decreasing the anxiety and depression associated with a marked deterioration in the quality of life of both the caregiver and the patient. Implications for nursing: The implementation of workshops such as this one to improve the community health of people with palliative care needs. Clinical trial: Not applicable.