A Nursing Faculty Intervention for Teaching Primary Palliative Care in Baccalaureate Nursing Competency-Based...

The American Association of Colleges of Nursing introduced hospice/palliative/supportive care as a focus area for baccalaureate nursing and identified pre-licensure competency-based education as essential for a safe and effective entry-to-practice nurse workforce. Yet many nursing educators lack knowledge and skills to teach competency-based primary palliative care (PPC).

We piloted an educational intervention for baccalaureate nursing faculty in developing a competency-based PPC learning activity. The intervention consisted of workshops during which pre- and posttest data were collected. Intervention materials included an open-access PPC faculty resource Guide and a Learning Activity Template developed by the first author.

Paired samples t tests demonstrated significant knowledge gains and changes in attitudes post-intervention in 17 of 20 areas assessed including "I am confident in my ability to teach nursing students about end-of-life care." There was a statistically significant increase in the total palliative care score (all 20 areas assessed) from pretest (M = 70.25, standard deviation [SD] = 9.54) to posttest (M = 80.40, SD = 10.10), t (39) = 9.18, p < 0.001 [two-tailed]). The Cohen's d statistic (1.45) indicated a large effect size. Additionally, over half of the participants created unique learning activities (n = 22) for teaching competency-based PPC.

This intervention addresses a faculty need in the context of new accreditation expectations. The open-access intervention materials shared in this article can be used to create course learning activities aligned with nursing needs for competency-based PPC. Future research should focus on effective faculty teaching interventions and reliable and valid assessment tools for faculty needs and student competency.