Final-year nursing students’ knowledge of palliative care

Abstract

Objective: To identify the knowledge of final year undergraduate nursing students on the topic of palliative care. Methods: This was a descriptive, cross-sectional study conducted with 50 final-year undergraduate nursing students at a public university from September to October 2021. The questionnaire was made available to the participants through Google Forms. Mann Whitney’s U test was performed to compare the median number of correct answers. Results: The mean age was 23.26 years, and the majority was female (88%). Most participants (78%) had some contact with the theme palliative care in their undergraduate course. However, 88% believe they have not aggregated enough knowledge and 64% do not consider themselves able to provide palliative care. Conclusions: Although most students know the concept of palliative care and its goals, there is a lack of specific knowledge about the topic.

Keywords

• nursing; nursing students; palliative care; end-of-life care; knowledge