Date of Conferral
2022
Degree
Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)
School
Nursing
Advisor
Anna Hubbard
Abstract
Abstract Palliative care is specialized care for people living with a serious illness. This type of care is centered on providing relief from the symptoms and stress of the illness with a primary goal to improve the quality of life for both the patient and the family. A gap in nursing practice was identified in a hospice facility in the South Central United States.; the nurses did not use palliative care or end-of-life (EoL) protocols. This project focused, therefore, on the development of a nursing staff education program for hospice nurses to increase knowledge about the use of EoL protocols. The project was guided by Kolcaba’s comfort theory and the analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation model. A literature review resulted in 35 peer-reviewed articles that supported program development. Nine staff nurses voluntarily participated in the project. A 15-question survey, including five demographic questions based on end-of-life nursing education consortium competencies and recommendations, was used as a pre-and post-test to determine knowledge gained from the staff education program. Data analysis revealed an increase in knowledge scores from the pretest (M=76.7) to the posttest (M=98.9) which was a statistically significant increase demonstrated by a paired t-test (p=.0038). This project has the potential to create social change by increasing nurses’ knowledge and awareness of the importance of using EoL protocols.
Recommended Citation
Coleman, Rhonda, "An Educational Program for Hospice Nurses about End-of-Life Protocols" (2022). Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies. 13272.
https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/13272
