Palliative care in nursing training: higher education course coordinators' perception

Area of Science:

• Nursing Education
• Palliative Care
• Higher Education

Background:

• Palliative care education is crucial for equipping nurses with essential skills.
• Understanding the perspectives of nursing course coordinators is vital for curriculum development.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze undergraduate nursing course coordinators' perceptions of palliative care training.
• To identify potentialities and challenges in teaching palliative care within nursing curricula.

Main Methods:

• A descriptive, qualitative study employing thematic content analysis.
• Involved coordinators from nursing courses in Higher Education Institutions in Rio Grande do Norte.

Main Results:

• Three thematic categories emerged: training, potentialities, and challenges.
• Potentialities include transversality, theoretical/practical approaches, optional subjects, and interdisciplinary collaboration.
• Challenges involve the biomedical model in health education and insufficient professor training.

Conclusions:

• Palliative care teaching in nursing education is incipient and fragmented.
• It often lacks a specific curricular component, being integrated as a general topic.
• Addressing challenges is essential to enhance palliative care education.