Revista de Enfermagem e Cuidados

Knowledge and Attitude towards Palliative Care among Nurses Working in Public Hospitals of the South Gondar Zone, Northwest Ethiopia: Facility-based Cross-sectional Study

Abstract

Tigabu Munye1 *, Netsanet Ejigu4, Melese Kebede1, Tekalgn Amera1, Amare Simegn3, Tadila Dires1, Demewoz Kefale2 andSolomon Demis2

Introduction: The World Health Organization defined palliative care as ‘‘an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing problems associated with life-threatening diseases, through prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable evaluation and treatment of pain and other physical, psychosocial, and spiritual problems.' In Africa, including Ethiopia, due to limited development of palliative care, many patients have not received formal palliative care. However, there are very limited studies on palliative care in Ethiopia, especially in the study area.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the knowledge and attitude toward palliative care among nurses working in Public Hospitals of the South Gondar Zone, northwest Ethiopia, 2020.

Methods: A facility-based cross-sectional study design was conducted. All nurses (402) working in all public hospitals in the South Gondar Zone was included in the study. The collected data were verified for completeness, edited, coded manually, entered into Epi Data version 4.2 and exported to SPSS version 22.00 for analysis. Binary logistic regression was used to analyze the outcome variables.

Results: This study revealed that 304 (78.55%) of the respondents had inadequate knowledge and 273 (70.54%) also had an unfavorable attitude towards palliative care. In general, the level of education of nurses and the year of work experience showed a significant association with the knowledge and attitude of nurses towards palliative care.

Conclusion: This study revealed that most nurses had inadequate knowledge and an unfavorable attitude toward palliative care. Therefore, all the concerned bodies, including nurses, must work together to improve the knowledge and attitude of nurses towards palliative care by providing sustainable training and involving the philosophy of palliative care in nursing education to expand the limited palliative care service in the area and the country at large. Knowledge, Attitude, Palliative Care and Nurses