Paper
Friday, 21 July 2006
This presentation is part of : Research Testing Strategies for Implementing Evidence-Base Practice
Perceptions on End-of-Life Care Questionnaire
Lolita Melhado, RN, BSN, PCCN, Linda Convertine, RN, CMSRN, Lisa A. Dunmyer, RN-C, Kay Kimbrough, RN, and Barbara Pretasky, PhD, MS, BS. Medical/Surgical, Lee Memorial Health Systems, Ft. Myers, FL, USA
Learning Objective #1: use the End-of-Life Care Questionnaire to develop an evidence based intervention that improves nurses' competency.
Learning Objective #2: improve quality at end-of-life care for patients and their families
Emerging themes in nursing literature continue to urge the nursing profession to expand its focus on care at the end of life. While the literature provides ample theoretical and practical frameworks in end of life issues, little is known about nurses’ perceptions and their competency in dealing with dying patients and their families. Of the 2.3 million persons who die annually in the United States, the majority dies in hospitals. Patients who are facing end of life spend more time with nurses than with any other member of the healthcare team, yet no reliable measure was found that identifies those areas of misperception that need further development. The Perceptions on End-of-Life Care Questionnaire was designed to identify the nurse’s perception of standards of care and competencies necessary for effective end of life care.  A 28-item instrument designed to measure nurses’ perceptions on end-of-life care was administered to a convenience sample of nurses (N=65). Test-retest reliability produced a correlation coefficient of 0.91 and a Cronbach’s alpha of .83. The tool can be used in future studies to measure the effectiveness of interventions designed to change the nurse’s perceptions of end-of-life care and therefore improve competent care for this population.

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