Kozek, Caroline. Assessing oncology nurses’ perceived difficulties in providing palliative care to adult oncology patients. Retrieved from https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/t3-01jy-te56
DescriptionPurpose of Project: Oncology nurses provide palliative care to a large population of patients, but their role in providing palliative care is often uncertain. Researchers have shown that oncology nurses struggle with professional autonomy in their role. They have also identified several barriers oncology nurses experience while providing palliative care, such as: lack of support, lack of time, and poor communication. The purpose of this quality improvement project was to assess and measure oncology nurses’ perceived difficulties in providing palliative care for adult oncology patients.
Methodology: A quality improvement study design was implemented, utilizing five informational palliative care sessions with in-patient oncology nurses. The sessions included the discussion of palliative care nursing practice, challenges in palliative care, as well as palliative care case studies. A demographic survey and The Nurses’ Difficulties Scale for Dying Patients and Their Families (NDD) scale were distributed to each participant via REDCap (an electronic survey software) at three time points (pre, post, and 4-6 weeks post intervention) to assess for a change in perceived difficulties.
Results: A total of 17 participants attended an informational session and completed the surveys from all three time points. 12 participants were excluded from data analysis due to lack of follow-up and completion of the surveys. The results of this project indicated that the informational session had a positive, long-term effect on oncology nurses’ perceived difficulties in providing palliative care to adult oncology patients. Specifically, it was shown that compared to the perceived difficulties reported pre-informational session, oncology nurses reported a statistically significant improvement 4 to 6 weeks post-informational session in symptom management, communication with the healthcare team, communication with family, and grief management.
Implications: A brief informational session about palliative care reduced oncology nurses’ perceived difficulties and improved their level of comfort in symptom management, communication with the healthcare team and family, and grief management. Potential implications of this project in nursing include the addition of palliative care training methods and skills courses for nurses who provide palliative care. These efforts may also reflect an improvement in the quality of palliative care provided to oncology patients as well as patient/family satisfaction with communication.