Assessment of Nurses Knowledge Practice and Associated Factors Towards Pediatrics Palliative Care of Nurses Working at Selected Hospitals in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Creators: name: Mandesh, Alemnesh
Publisher: name: National Academic Digital Repository of Ethiopia
Year: 2014

description: To provide quality pediatric palliative care at the end of life or with life threatening illness, nurse must have good knowledge and practice about pediatric palliative care . Palliative care is approach that improves the quality of life for children and their families facing the problem. Palliative care is new and specialized field for nurses, very little is known about the type of services offered and the readiness of the nurse to provide palliative care. Knowledge and competences of optimal pain assessment and management at the end – of life enhances nurse's practical knowledge. Knowledge of palliative care is essential for nurses, especially in pediatrics', where palliative care is less common than with adults. Objectives: Assessment of nurses' knowledge practice and associated factors towards pediatrics palliative care of nurses working at selected Hospitals in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Material and methods: A cross sectional quantitative study design was carried out on 252 nurses working in selected hospitals of Addis Ababa. For qualitative study FGD was conducted in three groups, one group contains 6-8members. The study was conducted from November to June 2014. Five governmental and two nongovernmental hospitals was selected. These hospitals selected because they admit children of different age for care and treatment. Palliative Care Quiz for Nursing (PCQN) and practical questions tools from African palliative care Association /palliative outcome scale for Africa was used. EPI-INFO and SPSS soft ware statistical package were applied for data entry and analysis .P-value less than 0.05 were considered as statistically significant Result: The response rate was 252 (98.8%) of the total 249 respondents. Out of total study participants only 37(14.8%) had good knowledge toward pediatric palliative care. Bachelor and Master level of education were significantly associated with knowledge of pediatric palliative care. Training on palliative was significantly associated with knowledge of nurses towards palliative care. Concerning their knowledge aspect practice more than half 243(97.5 %) of the respondent had poor knowledge aspect of practice towards pediatric palliative care and 190(76.3%) initiate pediatric palliative care discussion to the family during diagnosis.148(59.4%), inform to the family their child's terminal stage illness. Age, sex year of working experience pediatric ward had significant association with knowledge aspect practice of pediatric palliative care. Conclusion and Recommendation The finding of this study show nurses participated in this study had poor knowledge (85.2 %) and knowledge aspect practice (97.5%) had poor towards pediatric palliative care. Therefore pediatric palliative should be integrated in to the national health policy and incorporate in nursing curriculum .Training should also be delivered in this field to nurses in hospital. Key words: Addis Ababa, knowledge, nurse, palliative care, pediatrics and pract