The Effect of Education in Palliative and End of Life Care on the Knowledge and Attitude of Nurses from Selected Hospitals, Kerala
Abstract
Pre experimental pretest- post test study was done to assess the effect of education in palliative and end of life care on the knowledge and attitude of nurses from selected hospitals, Kerala. The researcher used a convenient sampling technique to recruit the participants prior to the educational session. Out of 370 delegates, 230 were selected as sample who met the inclusion criteria. They were subjected to complete the tool with categories of demographic data, knowledge questionnaire and attitude scale. The analytical findings revealed that 76.9% subjects had poor knowledge, 22.6% with good knowledge and only 0.4% had excellent level of knowledge in palliative care before the educational session. The mean knowledge score of the sample markedly improved from 10.35 to 15.87 (t (229) = 21.63, p<0.05) after the intervention. Statistically significant improvement was also evident in the attitude score after the session (t (229) = 6.09, p<0.05). Future research studies should emphasize more on the sustainability of knowledge and attitude of nurses and the implementation of palliative care practice in hospitals as well as community settings.
