Assessment of Nursing Knowledge in Palliative Care

Abstract

Background: Acute care nurses are challenged in caring for chronically and terminally ill patients. Many nurses do not have the knowledge or comfort level in handling ethical challenges or palliative care (PC) discussions with patients and their families. Understanding the palliative care approach can help acute care nurses increase their palliative care knowledge and promote the use of the palliative care team. Purpose: The purpose of this project is to assess palliative care knowledge in nurses at a Midwestern acute care hospital, prior to and after an educational intervention. By performing this comparison, a determination will be made on whether the educational intervention was successful in increasing nursing knowledge in palliative care. Methods: Orthopedic and neurology nurses from a Midwestern acute care hospital were assessed on their palliative care knowledge using the Palliative Care Quiz for Nursing (PCQN). Participants were given the PCQN pretest and posttest to complete before and after a 15-minute educational intervention. Results: PCQN scores for the total sample was 9-18/20 on the pretest and 13-20/20 on the posttest. Overall, the sample mean pretest score was 13.11 (SD = 2.54, 65.5%) and 17.11 (SD = 1.82, 85.5%) for the posttest, with p < .0001. Differences were considered significant if p < .05. Conclusion: Statistically significant differences were noted in nursing knowledge pre and post education. Nurses had low-level baseline PC knowledge. After PC education, nurses scored higher on the posttest.