Challenges Facing Hospital Based Nurses who Provide Palliative Care for Patients with Chronic and Serious Illness

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 medical-surgical,faculty of nursing, mansoura university

2 Assist Professor of Medical Surgical Nursing, Faculty of nursing, Mansoura University, Egypt.

Abstract

Background: Palliative care is an approach that improves the quality of patients' life and their families facing the
problems associated with a life-threatening illness. Nurses are the largest regulated group of healthcare providers in
palliative care provision. They are the primary providers of palliative care. Many nurses involved in palliative care face
challenges to provide palliative care. Aim: Assess challenges facing hospital based nurses who provide palliative care
for patients with chronic and serious illness. Sample: A convenience sample of 120 nurses, who provide palliative care
at Dekernes General Hospital, affiliated to Ministry of health, Egypt.Method: A descriptive exploratory research design
was used. Tool: One tool was used for data collection. Part 1: challenges facing nurses who provide palliative care
related to nurses themselves. Part 2: challenges facing nurses who provide palliative care related to patients and their
families. Part 3: challenges facing nurses who provide palliative care related to hospital system. In addition to nurses’
demographic characteristics. Results: There are many challenges facing nurses who provide palliative care. Majority of
these challenges related to patients and their families (76.2%). Half of these challenges related to nurses (52.8%). While,
challenges related to hospital system (34.2%). Conclusion: According to the findings gathered in our study, it was
concluded that:, nurses indeed face numerous challenges in providing effective palliative care for patients with chronic
and serious illness: the most challenges they themselves as nursing staff face is the work related load, followed by in
adequate numbers / or shortage of nurses providing palliative care, then lack of communication between the nurses and
patients/their family, and Lack of nurses’ experience in providing palliative care for those types of patients.
Recommendation: The hospital administrative authoritarians that are responsible for hiring and staffing nurses should
make sure that nurses are well staffed and that they are not overworked to be able to provide effective palliative care for
patients with chronic and serious illness

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