Attitudes of Nursing Staff in a Maternal Child Unit Regarding Palliative Care

Abstract

Background: Death in the neonatal period affects not only the patient and the family, but the nursing staff. Lack of education in palliative care puts undue stress on the staff and causes negative attitudes. Methods and Design: An evidence based project with a pretest, posttest, 30-day posttest design measured nurses comfort and involvement levels prior to an educational intervention, immediately after the intervention and 30-days post intervention. The sample was a convenience sample of nurses from an inpatient hospital. A psychometric instrument was used with higher scores indicating more comfort, and lower scores, indicating less comfort. This was also true for levels of involvement. Results: Results from the pretest, posttest and 30-day posttest indicate there is a significant improvement in the nurse’s levels of comfort. The involvement portion of the scale did not show a statistical difference, but there is a clinical significance. A possible explanation for the lack of statistical significance is that involvement is a delayed reaction to a residual effect of the intervention. There was not a statistical difference from the immediate posttest and the 30-day posttest. This indicates there may have been a lack of the ability to retain the information, or the nurses needed more time to implement what they had learned from the training. Conclusion: Training and education in palliative care should be implemented for all nurses, including the maternal child staff where the mortality rate is high. The implementation of proper education can change the nurse’s attitudes, comfort level and improve the overall experience of the staff, family and patient.