Effect of palliative care guideline on nurses' knowledge, attitude, and practice at intensive care unit

Abstract

Background; Palliative care (PC) is specialized medical care for people living with a serious illness. PC is focused on providing relief from the symptoms and stress of the illness. The goal is to improve quality of life for both the patient and the family. Aim; This study aimed to evaluate the effect of palliative care guideline on nurses' knowledge, attitude and practice at intensive care unit. Design; Quasi experimental research design was used. Settings; general intensive care unit and emergency ICU at Benha University Hospital. Subjects; A convenience sample of all available nurses who are working in previous settings (No=100).Tools; I: Self-administered questionnaire for nurses to assess nurses'' knowledge regarding palliative care, II: Nurses' attitude toward palliative care and III: Nurses' observational Checklist to assess nurses "practices related to palliative care. Results; revealed that78.0% of the studied nurses age less than thirty years old , 44.0% had technical nursing institute and76.0% had an experience from 1<5years. Regarding to total nurses' knowledge pre/post palliative care guideline. Only (10%) of the studied nurses had satisfactory level of total knowledge regarding palliative care pre palliative care guideline implementation, improved to (79%) post palliative care guideline. Regarding total attitude toward palliative care pre and post , 93% of the studied nurses had poor attitude pre palliative care guideline, while post 83% had good attitude. Concerning nurses "total practices 13% of the studied nurses had competent level of practice pre palliative care guideline which improved to 70% post implementation .Conclusion; palliative care guideline had a positive effect on improving nurses" knowledge, attitude and practice toward palliative care. Also, there were significant positive correlation between nurses" knowledge and practice pre and post palliative care guideline implementation and positive significant correlation between nurses" attitude and practice post palliative care guideline. Recommendations: Availability and accessibility of written palliative care guidelines in critical care units in order to update the nurses" knowledge improve practice and develop a positive attitude towards palliative care.