Nurses knowledge and attitude about palliative care in a private sector hospital Lahore, Pakistan

Background and Objectives: The most important members of any nation are its nurses.With the growing number of patients in the latter stages of life, palliative care has become vital in nursing care.One of the most frequent obstacles to providing high-quality palliative care is nurses' ignorance of and unfavourable attitudes toward it.The purpose of the study is to assess the knowledge and attitude among nurses regarding palliative care in Pakistan.METHODOLOGY: This is a descriptive cross sectional study with sample size 92 staff nurses, included 4.3 % male and 95.7% female.Data was collected by self-administered questionnaire, comprised on three parts: Demographic characteristics of nurses, the Palliative Care Quiz for Nursing (PCQN), and the Frommelt Attitudes Towards Care of the Dying (FATCOD).SPSS version 25 was used for data analysis.RESULTS: Regarding Knowledge assessment (PCQN), less than half (35.88%) of the study participant had scored above the mean cut off point (8.717,SD = 7.98) and one fourth of the participant (29.3%) had scores exceeding a cut off score 15, representing adequate knowledge about palliative care.The rate of correct answers was ranged from 69.6% to 15.2%.Regarding nurses' attitude, the total FATCOD score were ranged from 36-105 (mean = 76.03,median = 80, SD = 13.06), but only 40 (43.5%) had a score greater than75% for FATCOD scales.CONCLUSION: The study investigated evidence that nurses have a positive attitude about caring for patients and concluded that more resources and attention should be allocated to training and assisting nurses who provide palliative care to patients.