Improving End-of-Life Care: An Evidence-based Curriculum for Nursing Students
DNP Candidate. This project is in process and will be completed by March 2015.
Rationale/Background
Individuals are living longer, experiencing terminal diseases for extended periods of time and they often die in acute settings with nurses at the bedside. A majority of these nurses have not had focused end-of-life knowledge and skills in their nursing school curriculum. Nurses frequently feel ill-prepared to manage the symptomatology and needs of this patient population which in turn causes many to experience anxiety and fear when caring for a dying patient.
Purposes/Aims
The purpose of this project is to develop and implement an online end-of-life curriculum, with the goal of changing nursing student’s attitudes towards caring for dying patients and better prepare them to care for this patient population.
Undertaking/best practice/approach/methods/process
End-of-Life evidence-based practice information is available and will be utilized to develop an online course for eight undergraduate nursing students at the University of Utah College of Nursing. Information related to the project will be presented to 3rd semester nursing students in the beginning of the Spring 2015 semester and they will be invited to participate. Once the students agree, they will be asked to complete a validated pre questionnaire, complete the online course and on completion of the course will again take a post questionnaire (same as the pre questionnaire). The data collected will be de-identified and evaluated.
Outcomes achieved/documented
The anticipated outcome for the project is that the nursing students will have improved attitudes towards caring for dying patients and be better equipped to care for this patient population.
Conclusions
Providing this curriculum to nursing students will equip them to become more confident nurses in meeting the needs and managing the symptoms of dying patients. Additionally, patients will experience peaceful deaths and family members will feel relief in knowing their loved one is receiving optimal care. Future use of this online course will be accessible to University of Utah College of Nursing graduate nursing students and faculty.