Background:
Death is an inevitable phenomenon that affects every human being. Nurses play a key role in caring for dying patients. That role is seen as one of the most stressful facets of nursing, they spend more time with dying patients. Nurses’ attitudes toward death and dying could affect the nursing care they provide.
Aim:
The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of an educational intervention on the attitudes of nurses toward care of the dying.
Methods:
Design and setting: A quasiexperimental design was conducted at Oncology Centre –Mansoura University. One group of thirty five nurses from different departments accepted to participate voluntary and gave consent were recruited.
Tool of the study: One tool was used to collect data, “Frommelt Attitude Toward Care of the Dying” Scale (FATCOD), in addition to a demographics questionnaire. It was used pre- post intervention.
Results:
The results indicate that implementing the educational intervention program affects positively and significantly nurses’ attitudes towards care of the dying.
Conclusions:
In order to prepare nurses to effectively care for the dying patient, education must be incorporated into undergraduate studies in all healthcare institutions. A palliative care elective course should be considered to allow the content to be expanded to a full semester course. In service training and continuous educational program is essential to improve nurses’ attitudes towards care of the dying. It is also recommended that this study be repeated using a larger sample size.
Keywords: Educational Intervention, Palliative Care, Nurses, knowledge, Attitudes, Experience, Care of Dying