Date of Award
1997
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education (EdD)
Department
Educational Leadership
First Advisor
Gary D. Chamberlin, Ph.D.
Abstract
Education on death, dying, bereavement, and end-of-life care is a vital component of the basic preparation of the registered nurse. Yet, practicing nurses continue to report that programs offered in nursing schools do not prepare them adequately to provide comprehensive care to the dying. An explanation given in the literature is that some nurse educators do not value the inclusion of death education in the nursing curriculum. These educators argue that the current curricula are already too full and that skills related to the care of the dying are not as important as life-sustaining skills. They believe that skills related to the care of the dying will be learned and refined after graduation. Inadequate preparation therefore results, leaving the future nurse ill-equipped to provide appropriate care to the dying patients. The problem of this study was to determine nurse educators' expectations of what nursing graduates should know regarding death, dying, and end-of-life care in their basic nursing preparation. Using a descriptive survey design, a convenience sample of 148 nationally certified nurse educators, currently teaching in a diploma, associate degree, or baccalaureate program, were asked to rank what they consider highest priority content to be included in a nursing curriculum. An item analysis was done and differences in the nurse educators' expected knowledge on death and dying, bereavement, and end-of-life care, based on the type of nursing program in which they teach and selected demographic characteristics, were analyzed. All nurse educators rated non-pharmacological nursing interventions, pain evaluation, pain assessment, confidentiality, and pharmacological aspects of pain as highest priority items. Lowest priority was assigned to education of volunteers, hospice licensure and certification, continuous quality improvement/utilization review, congenital anomalies, and models of care delivery. There was no statistically significant difference, at the .05 level, in the rankings assigned to three ordered groups of 33 content items by the educators in the three nursing programs. Other implications for death education in nursing are discussed.
Recommended Citation
Mercado-Poe, Carmencita C., "Death, Dying, and End-of-Life Care: Nurse Educators' Prescription for Nursing Education" (1997). Theses and Dissertations. 68.
https://research.ualr.edu/etd/68
