Nurses' preparedness to care for patients with terminal diseases in a selected hospital in Angola

Abstract

The impression existed that nurses were not always compassionate and caring when they had to nurse terminally ill patients and the question arose whether they were adequately trained for this task. This study focused on the most frequent diseases that cause the death of patients in a province of Angola, and set out to determine what preparation nurses in a specific hospital received to equip them to care for terminally ill patients. A quantitative approach was adopted, using an exploratory and descriptive design, and a self-developed questionnaire was applied as data-collection instrument for a sample of 100 medium- and basic level nurses in a specific hospital in a province of Angola.

From the results of the study it was evident that the nurse respondents were well informed as to what it entailed to be terminally ill, which factors affected the patient's comfort, safety and self image needs but only half of the respondents indicated that they received training pertaining to palliative care. Recommendations were made in view of better preparing nurses to care for the terminally ill patient.