Abstract
Thousands of children die each year, with the majority of deaths occurring in the hospital setting. However, nurses caring for these children have limited expertise and varying comfort levels regarding palliative and end-of-life care. Nurses are traditionally taught to focus their care on survival, healing, and curing, yet frequently become the primary care providers when the child is dying. National initiatives and incentives support and advocate for palliative and end-of-life care for children, but evidence demonstrates that nurses are both unprepared for this type of care and express confusion regarding palliative and curative care for children. The purpose of this study was to investigate pediatric nurses' knowledge and attitudes about pediatric palliative care. A one-group, pretest-posttest, pre-experimental design was utilized to evaluate the impact of an educational program on the attitudes and knowledge of 25 pediatric and pediatric ICU nurses working at a large urban metropolitan medical center. Statistical significance found that the intervention of an educational program increased pediatric nurses' knowledge (P = .02) and improved attitudes regarding pediatric palliative care (P = .001). Recommendations included offering palliative/end-of-life training as a routine part of staff orientation as well as ongoing clinical programs to all pediatric nurses who may care for dying children. Implications for curricular changes in nursing programs were also discussed.