Factors that influence graduating nursing students’ consensus about learning and end of life nursing care Background; Graduating nursing students’ attitudes and behaviours towards learning and end of life nursing care.
Abstract
Background; Graduating nursing students’ attitudes and behaviours towards learning about end of life nursing care are reflective of their personal values and educational preparation.
Aims; To identify factors that can predict graduating student nurses’ attitudes regarding end of life care nursing learning and subsequent practices.
Methods; A non-experimental survey method using a convenience sample of third year undergraduate nurses in one university was employed. The consensus measures are confirmed by Rasch analysis and then estimated against a range of end of life nursing care practices, using Path Modelling.
Results; Outcomes demonstrated that 43 per cent of the nurses’ consensus scores about their end of life nursing practices can be directly predicted by their self-rated knowledge about end of life care, prior learning, family experiences of death and dying and their religious beliefs. Other influences including their personal and professional values and their age have added indirect effects but the nurses’ gender, country of birth, and their professional exposure to patients who were dying, demonstrated no influence on their final consensus scores. These outcomes suggest graduate nursing abilities about end of life care could be enhanced when nurse educators embrace alternative learning process, other than predominantly using didactic processes.
Conclusions; Reliable consensus estimates about end of life nursing practices can be obtained, scaled and used to evaluate completing nurses’ confidence to engage in end of life nursing care practices and concurrently inform the undergraduate curriculum..
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References
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