Journal of Nursing & Care

Knowledge and Attitude of Nurses towards Palliative Care in Government Hospitals of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Abstract

Sisay Gedamu, Emebet Berhane, Abebe Dires, Samuel Anteneh, Debrnesh Goshiye and Lehulu Tilahun

Purpose of the study: To provide clear findings regarding knowledge and attitude towards palliative care with its associated factors which may help to show direction to solve problems based on the result.

Methods: An institution based cross-sectional study was conducted among 426 nurses in four randomly selected government hospitals in Addis Ababa. To select the study participants, the total sample size was allocated proportionally to each selected hospitals. Again proportional allocation was done for each work area in each selected hospitals. Finally from each work areas, nurses were selected by using a systematic random sampling method to attain the final individuals. 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. Epidata 3.1 and SPSS version 23 software were applied for data entry and analysis respectively.

Result: The response rate was 92.02% of the total participants. Study results had shown that only 104 (26.5%) of the respondents had good knowledge and 331 (84.4%) had favorable attitude towards palliative care. Level of Education, working department, years of working experiences in nursing, experience in caring chronically ill patient and in-service training of palliative care had significant association with the knowledge of nurses towards palliative care. Level of education, experience in caring chronically ill patient and in-service training were found to be statistically significant with the attitude of nurses towards palliative care.

Conclusion: Nurses had poor knowledge but their attitude towards palliative care was favorable. Attention should be given towards palliative care by the policy makers and palliative care to be incorporated in nursing education. On job training for nurses working in hospitals should be provide.