Instrument Development: Knowledge, Attitudes, and Confidence in Palliative Care Concepts Held by Trauma and...

Area of Science:

• Nursing
• Palliative Care
• Trauma Care

Background:

• Trauma intensive care unit (TICU) nurses face unique challenges when caring for severely injured patients nearing end-of-life.
• Facilitating palliative care consultations requires nurses to possess adequate knowledge, positive attitudes, and confidence.
• Existing instruments may not fully support TICU nurses in this critical referral process.

Purpose of the Study:

• To refine an instrument designed to assess and support TICU nurses in making palliative care referrals.
• To enhance the reliability and validity of a tool measuring nurses' knowledge, attitudes, and experiences related to advance directives.
• To provide a foundation for developing targeted educational strategies for TICU nurses.

Main Methods:

• The study utilized a convenience sample of 42 respondents.
• The Knowledge, Attitudinal, and Experiential Survey on Advance Directive (KAESAD) was administered to participants.
• Reliability analysis, including Cronbach's alpha, was performed on the survey domains.

Main Results:

• The instrument demonstrated strong internal consistency across most domains.
• The "professional attitudes" domain showed a Cronbach's alpha of .995.
• The "clinical experiences" domain exhibited a high Cronbach's alpha of .999.

Conclusions:

• The refined instrument shows strong reliability for assessing key aspects of palliative care referral readiness in TICU nurses.
• Future research with larger sample sizes can further validate the instrument.
• Findings can inform the development of continuing education programs for nurse educators to target specific areas for improvement.