Educational program on death and palliative care in health professionals

Abstract

Introduction: The existing relationship between health personnel and death, have an inevitable emotional involvement, since they live and coexist daily with death. OBJECTIVE: To know the effect of an Educational Program on Death and Palliative Care (PEMyCP), based on the notion of illness and death in Mexico. Method: Comparative quasi-experimental study, non-probabilistic sampling for convenience, pretest-posttest design of a single group, with health professionals in Mexico. The instruments used were: Scale of attitudes before the palliative care, Questionnaire of professional competences and Scale of anxiety before the death of Templer. Through frequency analysis, tests t for related samples and analysis of variance ANOVA. Results: The PEMyCP had a positive impact on the attitudes towards palliative care (t = -2.0050, p = 0.44), on professional abilities (t = 6.969, p= 0.00), and anxiety about death (t=2.991, p=0.15). ANOVA was performed, found significant changes in knowledge (F=8.5988, p= 0.0000) and abilities (skills) (F= 6.1197, p=0.0000); however, no changes in attitudes were identified (F= 0.76131, p= 0.63738). In the anxiety before death, are observed statistically significant differences (F=4.0048, p=0.00919). Conclusions: The PEMyCP had a favorable impact on knowledge, abilities and anxiety in the face of death, but not in the attitudes towards death and palliative care, since it takes more time to modify them because not only cognitive aspects are acquired, but also affective and behavioral through the own experience.