Faculty and Student Preparedness for Primary Palliative Care: A Comparative Study

While it is recommended that nurses be prepared to deliver primary palliative care, these services remain inaccessible for many. Nurses, as frontline providers, should have the knowledge and skills to provide this care. The aim of this study was to determine faculty experiences in palliative and end-of-life care and how those experiences affected their perceptions of student preparedness to deliver primary palliative care and their preparedness to teach primary palliative care. A descriptive, comparative study in the Midwestern United States was conducted with faculty from 4 universities integrating palliative care education into their nursing programs. Faculty with teaching experience in palliative care significantly rated student preparedness to deliver primary palliative care higher than faculty without this teaching experience, P < .01. Having education or training in palliative care had a significant effect on faculty’s self-reported preparedness to teach primary palliative care after controlling for years of teaching experience, F (1, 30) = 6.935, P = .013. These findings can be used as nursing schools intentionally implement palliative care in accordance with the American Association of Colleges of Nursing Essentials.