Knowledge and opinions of nursing students on palliative care: A university example

Abstract

Objectives: This study was conducted to determine the level of knowledge of nursing students about palliative care.Methods: The descriptive study was conducted with 324 graduate students who received training at a state university. Data were collected by using a questionnaire prepared by the researchers to determine the students' level of knowledge about palliative care and the notion of death. The analysis was performed using parametric and non-parametric tests on computers.Results: The average age of students was 20.56 ± 1.39, 82.7% of them were female, 16.4% graduated from Healthcare Vocational High School, and 40.1% of them were second grade students. The average palliative care knowledge score of students was calculated as 70.54 ± 11.01. The knowledge scores of female students were significantly higher than male students (p = 0.001), and the scores of the third- and fourth-year students were significantly higher than the second-year students (p = 0.001). The palliative care knowledge scores of the respondents who defined the concept of death as “a new beginning for eternal life, rebirth" were significantly lower than those who defined it as "the end of life" (p = 0.02).Conclusions: It was found that the average palliative care score of students is above the intermediate level, and the scores are affected by gender, level of knowledge, age, grade, having received palliative care training, having provided care to patients in the terminal stage and defining ways of death.