Abstract:
Background: Good knowledge and favorable attitude among nurses and physicians are crucial to the quality of palliative care services. Numerous studies have demonstrated that nurses and other healthcare personnel are insufficiently prepared to give patients palliative care.
Objective: The objective of this study was to assess the knowledge, attitude and associated factors of nurses towards palliative care among those working at private hospitals.
Methods: An institution based cross-sectional study was conducted among 196 nurses at selected private hospital in Addis Ababa from March 1- 30, 2023. Simple random sampling used to select study participants. The knowledge and attitude of nurses towards palliative care was measured using questionnaires which are adopted and modified from the Palliative Care Quiz for Nursing and Frommelt Attitude toward Care of the Dying scale respectively. Epinfo and SPSS version 26 software were applied for data entry and analysis respectively. Binary logistic regression was used to identify factors associated with the outcome variables. A P-value of 0.05 was used as a cut-off value to declare statistically significant association in final model which is multivariable logistic regression.
Results: A total 196 nurses were included in the study with a response rate of 95.6%. The overall good knowledge and favorable attitude about palliative care was 47.4% with 95% CI: 40.5 - 54.45 and 47.4% with 95% CI: 40.5 - 54.45, respectively. Organizations where nurses are currently employed and attending formal palliative care training at colleges or universities (AOR=2.03, 95% CI=1.03-4.01) were associated with good knowledge of palliative care. On the other hand organizations where nurses are currently employed, working in OPD (AOR= 0.22, 95% CI = 0.08-0.64) compared to emergency, being in the age groups of 25-35 years (AOR=0.34, 95% CI=0.16, 0.70) compared to less than 25 years, and being male (AOR=2.90, 95% CI=1.04, 8.09) were associated with favorable attitude
Conclusion and Recommendation: In this study, about one in two nurses reported having good knowledge of and a favorable attitude towards palliative care. Public health initiatives should offer meaningful and effective ways to promote knowledge of and a positive attitude towards palliative care. Palliative care education should be a part of nursing curricula in universities and colleges........................ Thesis available at Addis Continental Institute of Public Health Libary