Registered nurses play a critical role in delivering effective palliative and end-of-life patient care. Previous literature has cited that registered nurses report a lack of adequate palliative care training in academic and continuing education programs. Providing care to patients at the end of life requires knowledge in a variety of areas such as nonpharmacologic symptom management, cultural considerations, and pain management. This study aimed to investigate the impact of a professional development intervention among registered nurses on their educational needs in providing palliative care. Using a 1-group pretest-posttest design, a convenience sample of registered nurses completed an electronic survey containing demographic questions and the End-of-Life Professional Caregiver Survey. The professional development intervention consisted of an 8-hour training conducted by a content expert on palliative patient care addressing the competencies developed by the End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium. The results revealed a significant increase in participant knowledge in providing quality palliative care to patients (P < .001). Education programs on quality palliative and end-of-life patient care can effectively improve the care delivered to this patient population.
Copyright © 2020 by The Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association. All rights reserved.