title: Study of Nurses' Knowledge about Palliative Care: A Quantitative Cross-sectional Survey.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Studies have documented that nurses and other health care professionals are inadequately prepared to care for patients in palliative care. Several reasons have been identified including inadequacies in nursing education, absence of curriculum content related to pain management, and knowledge related to pain and palliative care.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The objective of this paper was to assess the knowledge about palliative care amongst nursing professionals using the palliative care knowledge test (PCKT).
  
  
  METHODS
  Cross-sectional survey of 363 nurses in a multispecialty hospital.
  
  
  METHODS
  The study utilized a self-report questionnaire- PCKT developed by Nakazawa et al., which had 20 items (statements about palliative care) for each of which the person had to indicate 'correct', 'incorrect', or 'unsure.' The PCKT had 5 subscales (philosophy- 2 items, pain- 6 items, dyspnea- 4 items, psychiatric problems- 4 items, and gastro-intestinal problems- 4 items).
  
  
  METHODS
  Comparison across individual and professional variables for both dimensions were done using one-way ANOVA, and correlations were done using Karl-Pearson's co-efficient using SPSS version 16.0 for Windows.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The overall total score of PCKT was 7.16 ± 2.69 (35.8%). The philosophy score was 73 ± .65 (36.5%), pain score was 2.09 ± 1.19 (34.83%), dyspnea score was 1.13 ± .95 (28.25%), psychiatric problems score was 1.83 ± 1.02 (45.75%), and gastro-intestinal problems score was 1.36 ± .97 (34%). (P = .00). The female nurses scored higher than their male counterparts, but the difference was not significant (P > .05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Overall level of knowledge about palliative care was poor, and nurses had a greater knowledge about psychiatric problems and philosophy than the other aspects indicated in PCKT.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiotherapy, Manipal College of Allied Health Sciences (Manipal University), Manipal Hospital, Bangalore, India.
authors.forename: Venkatesan
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Prem
authors.forename: Harikesavan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Karvannan
authors.forename: Senthil P
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Kumar
authors.forename: Surulirajan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Karthikbabu
authors.forename: Nafeez
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Syed
authors.forename: Vaishali
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Sisodia
authors.forename: Saroja
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Jaykumar
keywords: Information; Nursing education; Palliative care education; Professional knowledge