Knowledge and Perceived Self-Competence in Palliative Care among Professional Nurses with Less Than 2 Years Working Experience in an Autonomous University Hospital

Abstract

     The purposes of this descriptive research were to explore the knowledge and perceived self-competence in palliative care among registered nurses who had working experience less than two years in an autonomous university hospital. The participants were composed of 126 nurses. The research instruments were used to collect data included the demographic data form, the End of Life Knowledge Assessment, and the adjusted Palliative Care Nursing Self-Competence Scale. Content validity of all research instruments was verified by five experts. The End of Life Knowledge Assessment's content validity was .80 and, the reliability was reported by KR-20 as of .70. The adjusted Palliative Care Nursing Self-Competence Scale's content validity was .95, and the reliability was reported by Cronbach’s coefficient alpha as of .98. Data were analyzed using frequencies, percentages, means, and standard deviations.

     The results showed that the majority of the participants had a high level of knowledge. The highest score was the level of palliative knowledge about communication in end-stage patient care ( = .88, S.D = .19) and the symptom management at the end-stage level was the lowest ( = .63, S.D = .16). Perceived self-competence in palliative care was at a moderate level of confidence. The highest mean score was the confidence to provide care for end-stage patients ( = 2.96, S.D = .82), while the lowest mean score of confidence included communication and consulting ( = 2.62, S.D = .79). The mean duration of nursing practice was 13.23 months. 51.00 of the population had experience of caring for 5-10 patients with a terminal illness. The mean of studied palliative care during under graduated was 15.95 hours. Most of participants (87.30%) had never been trained in palliative care after graduation. Therefore, the newly graduated nurses should have been encouraged to acquire palliative care competence by providing knowledge, skill experiences, and palliative care training, especially in the communication and counseling skills.