Analysis of Palliative Care Themes among Nursing Textbooks
Open Access
- Author:
- Gortman, Lilliya
- Area of Honors:
- Health Policy and Administration
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Dr. Mark Sceigaj, Thesis Supervisor
Dr. Rhonda Be Lue, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- Palliative care
Quality of life
Quality of care
Elderly
End of life - Abstract:
- This study updates an article by Ferrell, B., Virani, R., Grant, M., & Juarez, G. that was published in 2000. Ferrell and colleagues reviewed 50 textbooks frequently used in nursing undergraduate programs (approximately 1,750 chapters and 45,683 pages) to determine how much information about palliative care was included. Palliative care is a medical service provided for patients who have a chronic illness; it focuses on quality of life and curative treatments for eligible patients. Since the study by Ferrell, palliative care has been receiving more attention in recent years, especially in the care of the elder population. However, 15 years later it is not clear how much formal education nurses receive on palliative care. I hypothesize that with the growing amount of articles and news attraction that the EOL topic is receiving, in recent years, there will be an increase in the percentage of EOL related chapters and pages within nursing textbooks, since 2000. Nurses interact with patients on an hourly and daily basis, they need to have adequate knowledge how to speak with patients about palliative care and its surrounding topics to provide quality and patient focused care. Using Ferrell and colleagues 2000 research as a guide, this study reviews the top 50 best-selling nursing textbooks of 2016 from ten categories: assessment and diagnosis, home and community health, critical and intensive care, emergency, gerontology, fundamentals and skill, long-term care, nursing home care, oncology and patient education; that relate to end-of-life and palliative care. Preliminary findings suggest that the amount of content related to palliative care in nursing textbooks has slightly changed since 2000. These findings suggest there remains a need in nursing education to expand its training on palliative care topics.