The knowledge of palliative care and the attitude toward it among the nurses at Sabia General Hospital 2018

Abstract

Background: The aim of this study is to assess the knowledge of Palliative Care and the attitude toward it among the nurses working in Sabia General Hospitals and to find out the association between the nursing staff, knowledge, attitude, and selected demographic variables.

Material and Methods: The author performed a cross-sectional descriptive survey
using a self-administered questionnaire. The total number of completed and returned questionnaires was 53, giving a 100% response rate. The study was conducted between December 2017 and January 2018 and a simple random sampling was performed among 53 nurses working in the Sabia General Hospital.

Methodology: For data collection, a self-administrative questionnaire was developed and used for assessment by the researcher. Nurses’ socio-demographic characteristics such as their age, gender, nursing qualification, department of work, work experience, training in caring terminally ill clients, and their knowledge of and attitude toward palliative care were assessed; the relation between socio demographic data and knowledge and attitude was also assessed. Results showed that respondents had fair knowledge of palliative care 27 (50.9%) and fair attitude 30 (56.6%). It was proved that there is a significant relation between knowledge and demographic data; p-value is 0.004.

Conclusion: Nurses showed poor knowledge toward palliative care and half of them showed a fair attitude.

Keywords: nurses, knowledge, attitude, palliative care