The Hungarian Nurses Knowledge about Palliative Care

OBJECTIVES: Knowledge of palliative care is essential for providing professional, complex care. Most studies show that newly graduated nurses are poorly prepared for end-of-life care and do not experience a lack of theoretical and practical training in palliative care and do not feel qualified to treat patients in need of such care. 963 nurses work in hospice home care. The aim of the current research is to determine the palliative care knowledge of nurses working in hospice home care and their development wishes.

METHODS: We prepared analytical online survey to assess the knowledge of palliative care among nurses working in home hospice care and non-hospice care. The survey included the recording of data on their profession, field of expertise, sociodemographic information, their qualifications in palliative care and their work experience in palliative care. We performed a descriptive analysis for continuous variables. We used the SPSS program for statistical analyses, and p < 0.05 was considered significant.

RESULTS: The study was conducted with the involvement of 100 nurses working in home hospice care and 100 non-hospice care. The level of knowledge of nurses working in hospice care (71.7%) was significantly higher than that of non-hospice workers (p=0.001). 85.6% of those working in non-hospice care feel that they would like to improve their palliative clinical knowledge. Among these, the most frequently mentioned are communication, the practice of drug pain relief and the treatment of tumorous wounds. 44.2% of nurses working in non-hospice care completed some form of palliative training. There was a significant difference between the nurses working in hospice and non-hospice care with regard to the importance of the goal of palliative care (p=0.049).

CONCLUSIONS: The results of the study showed that previous work experience, continuous training and basic education were essential factors in the acquisition of knowledge of palliative care.