Nursing Evaluation of Palliative Resources in An Acute Care Setting: Perceptions, Satisfaction, and Educational Needs

Abstract

Background: There is a lack of research available evaluating nursing staff perceptions of palliative care services and the educational needs derived from those perceptions. Purpose: To determine baseline nursing satisfaction scores and educational needs related to the palliative care resources currently available at the University of Kansas Hospital. Methods: Of approximately 1500 nurses, 216 completed the survey (15%). The survey was developed by a palliative care nurse and reviewed by the medical director. The survey included 18 quantitative and qualitative questions in five major categories: perceptions of palliative care, nursing attitudes when caring for patients receiving palliative care services, symptom management, nursing satisfaction, and education.

Findings: While 85.8% of nurses surveyed realize palliative care is not only for end of life, only 65% were comfortable caring for patients who were still actively receiving treatments. When caring for patients, nurses report feeling fulfilled (45%) and sad (43%). Dyspnea was reported to be the most challenging symptom to manage (52.9%), followed by anxiety (39%) and pain (37%). Participants felt the presence of the palliative care consult team contributed to improved nursing care (80%) and job satisfaction (70%). Educational needs identified by the nurses included a palliative care reference manual (79.5%) and a 4 hour CEU offering (47.8%).

Conclusion: Findings show that nurses’ report knowing what palliative care is and yet fewer felt comfortable caring for palliative care patients who were not on pure comfort measures. Nurses identified a need for improved communication from the palliative care team as well as education addressing caring for palliative care patients earlier in the disease trajectory. Future Considerations: Implementation of the suggested educational methods and a follow-up survey will be needed to evaluate the effectiveness of the interventions on the five major categories.