Palliative Care Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice of Nursing Students at Colleges of Nursing, Praboromarajchanok Institute

Abstract

Objectives:   This descriptive study aimed to describe and to test the palliative care knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) of 3^rd year (junior) and 4^th year (senior) nursing students at the College of Nursing, Praboramarajchanok Institute. Methods: A regional cluster and proportional-to-size sampling technique was applied to select 299 junior and senior students from the College of Nursing, Praboromarajchanok Institute. Data were collected by questionnaires administered to students. The test reliability of the questionnaires measuring palliative care KAP among students was acceptable (Knowledge: Kuder-Richardson-20 (KR-20) statistic = 0.75; Attitude: Cronbach’s alpha = 0.79; Practice: Cronbach’s alpha = 0.93). MANOVA was used to test whether  mean scores of knowledge, attitude, and practice of palliative care among nursing students was different based on variations in the amount of palliative care classes taken and prior experience providing  palliative care. Results:  61 % of respondents were seniors. 61 % of the respondents never attended a class or training on palliative care previously. 62 % had prior experience delivering palliative care to patients. The students had low mean scores for knowledge about palliative care among both 3^rd year and 4^th year students. Nursing students had high mean scores for attitude for palliative care, which demonstrated having positive attitudes about delivering palliative care. 3^rd year and 4^th year students also had high mean scores for practice on delivering palliative care, showing that they had experience providing palliative care for a relatively high number of patients with a wide range of different illnesses and conditions.  Moreover, mean score on knowledge, attitude, and practice on delivering palliative care of 4^th year students were higher than those of 3^rd year students deliver. Mean scores on knowledge, attitude, and practice on delivering palliative care among respondents who had previous experience with providing palliative care were higher than those who had no prior experience providing palliative care. The only statistically significant difference in mean knowledge score was among nursing students who have different levels of experience de on palliative care (F=5.73, df = 1, p=.018). Conclusions: Education, training, and experience on palliative care should be given to nursing students to increase their KAP on palliative care, particularly knowledge.