Paper
Thursday, July 14, 2005
Evaluation of Palliative Care in Undergraduate Nursing Programs
Rose Virani, RN, MHA, OCN1, Anne Rhome, MPH, RN2, Judith Paice, PhD, RN, FAAN3, Pam Malloy, RN, MN, OCN2, Patrick Coyne, RN, MSN, CS, CRNH, FAAN4, Betty R. Ferrell, PhD, FAAN1, and Marcia Grant, RN, DNSc, FAAN1. (1) Nursing Research and Education, City of Hope National Medical Center, Duarte, CA, USA, (2) American Association of Colleges of Nursing, Inc, Washington DC, DC, USA, (3) Division of Hematology/Oncology, Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago, IL, USA, (4) Oncology and Pain Management, Medical College of Virginia/Massey Cancer Center, Richmond, VA, USA
| Learning Objective #1: Identify a national nursing project related to end-of-life (EOL)/palliative care |
| Learning Objective #2: Describe the impact (through evaluation data) that the ELNEC (End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium) project has had on undergraduate nursing programs nationwide |
This presentation reports findings of a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded educational project, End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC), which had implemented a standard end of life/palliative care curriculum in 461 U.S. nursing schools. Based on the American Association of College of Nursing's Peaceful Death document, this national nursing effort, focusing on nine end-of-life content areas, was designed for undergraduate nursing education to prepare nurses during a formal education program before entry to practice. The project's (2000 – 2003) training programs were attended by 502 faculty teaching in 461 different undergraduate nursing programs representing all 50 states, District of Columbia, Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico who in turn implemented this curriculum into their own schools. Key concepts and outcome variables included evaluation of the existing curriculum, palliative care content in the curriculum and variables, including barriers, related to implementation of the course content in undergraduate education. This educational research endeavor used a variety of methods for educational training to prepare faculty to critically assess their existing curriculum and implement content related to end of life/palliative care. Extensive educational research included assessment of faculty knowledge and beliefs, a curriculum survey and detailed follow up evaluation at 6 and 12 months post attendance. Results of the 12 month evaluation indicate significant improvement in all nine content domains (p<.01 by paired t-test) in school curricula. A mean of 10 hours of EOL content were added to the curriculum at 12 months post course attendance. The ELNEC-Undergraduate project has been extremely successful in improving faculty knowledge, curriculum change and student outcomes. Efforts are underway to offer the ELNEC curriculum to non-ELNEC trained undergraduate nursing programs in the United States. This project has major implications for basic preparation of nurse's worldwide.