Nurses' Knowledge about and Attitude towards Palliative Care in Southeast Iran

Background: Palliative care requires nurses to be knowledgeable about and maintain a positive attitude towards different aspects of care they provide for dying patients. This study thus was conducted to examine the correlation between nurses' knowledge about and attitude towards palliative care in southeast Iran.

Method: For this descriptive correlational study, Palliative Care Quiz for Nursing (PCQN) and a selfadministered questionnaire were used to assess respectively the palliative care knowledge and attitudes of 140 oncology and ICU nurses from three hospitals supervised by Kerman University of Medical Science.

Results: In PCQN, the mean score was 7.59±2.28 out of 20. Participants had moderately negative to neutral attitudes toward palliative care (2.99±0.29 out of 5). There was a significant correlation between the subscale of "management of pain of and other symptoms" in PCQN and participants' length of experience caring for a dying family member. A significant correlation was found between nurses' attitudes toward palliative care and palliative care education, personal study about palliative care, level of education, and experience of caring for a dying family member. No correlation was found between nurses' knowledge about and attitude towards palliative care.

Conclusions: The study suggests that a continuing palliative care education may need to be added to the nursing curriculum in order to improve the quality of care at the end of life. Establishing specific palliative care units and creating a reflective narrative environment in which nurses can express their own feelings about palliative care and can improve palliative care knowledge and attitude.