Authors (including presenting author) :
Lee WM, Li KY, Chu MWC, Li SM, Lui YS, Chan HYY
Affiliation :
Department of Rehabilitation and Extend Care, TWGHs Wong Tai Sin Hospital.
Introduction :
End-of-Life Care (EOLC) is vital to dying patients and their families to maintain their dignity, a peaceful dying phase, address and manage the grief of the families. Nurses currently working in the non-palliative care setting have positive attitude towards EOLC, yet they are lacking of systematic training on knowledge and skill in EOLC (Alshammari et al., 2023). Readiness of nurses is crucial to deliver a quality EOLC to dying patients. In view of such, a structural-designed training program based on the Bloom’s taxonomy teaching style (Krathwohl, 2002) was developed. The program consisted of course planning, setting learning objectives, creating learning activities, assessments and evaluations.
Objectives :
Ensure readiness of nurses in EOLC; Develop nurses’ positive attitude to EOLC; Strengthen knowledge and skill in the application of EOLC.
Methodology :
The course planning with clear and effective learning objectives by pre-requisition readings and face-to-face workshop. Workshops on the concepts of EOLC, skills, knowledge and attitude in EOLC, specific nursing care in EOL, advanced care planning, handling patients with expected and unexpected death and artificial nutrition and hydration of patients. Then followed by an assessment and evaluation to reflect participants’ level of thinking, understanding and acceptance.
Result & Outcome :
Workshops were conducted from 13/11/2024 to 17/12/2024. 60 nurses had participated with a mean post-graduation experiences 10.3 years (range 1 to 30), whilst 26.7% (n= 16) were APN, 61.6% (n=37) were RN and 11.7% (n= 7) were EN. 96.6% (n=58) of participants were ready to deliver EOLC. Participants positive attitude was developed with 100% (n=60) agreed that their confidence was improved and motivation was also increased in communication. Their knowledge was increased by 27% by Pre-test (mean score 6 /10) and Post-test (mean score 9 /10). 100% (n=60) of participants responded well in knowledge whilst artificial nutrition and hydration were 98.3% (n=59). Overall, results showed that the EOLC was highly accepted with positive feedback. Conclusion: EOLC will maintain patients’ dignity, a peaceful dying phase, address and manage grief of families, so the readiness of nurses is essential. To deliver a quality EOLC, a structural-designed EOLC program within non-palliative care ward was introduced. Nurses could acquire the skills, knowledge and attitude of EOLC after the program. To alleviate service demand in aging population and optimize service quality, this program should be conducted continuously to cover all nurses within the department.
