Perception regarding End of Life Care among Staff Nurses

Nurses are required to become sensitive to end of life care issues. This study followed a descriptive research design, conducted among 98 staff nurses working in the medical nursing department of a tertiary care hospital of India. The aim was to assess the perception of the staff nurses towards end of life care. Total enumerative sampling technique was applied. Self-administered perception questionnaire which had 27 questions in 2 parts was used as data collection tool. In the first part the score of below 25 %, 25 % - 50 %, 50 % -75 % and above 75 % were interpreted as extremely unimportant, unimportant, important, and extremely important perception respectively, whereas in the second part the individual item was analyzed. Data analysis was done using descriptive statistics (frequency& percentage) and inferential statistics (correlation coefficient& Chi Square). The findings revealed that most of the subjects (69.4 %) considered end of life care as extremely important aspect of care and none of them perceived end of life care as unimportant. No association was found between demographic variables and perception (p value greater than0.05). Periodical in service education on end of life care may improve the knowledge and perception of staff nurses towards end of life care, which is crucial since the criticality of patients are increasing day by day, and nurses find themselves at the center of these difficult situations.