ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Advanced practice nurses (APNs) are crucial in the provision of quality end-oflife care. However, little attention is devoted to palliative care in most graduate nursing curricula, leaving advanced practice nurses poorly prepared to meet the needs of those approaching the end of their lives. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of the graduate version of the End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC-Graduate) Training Program is to provide nursing faculty with the knowledge and materials necessary to include palliative care throughout the graduate nursing curriculum. DESIGN AND SETTINGS: Sixty graduate nursing faculty members attended the first ELNECGraduate training course. Prior to attending the course, each participant completed surveys regarding the adequacy of end-of-life (EOL) content within their curriculum, as well as overall perceptions of EOL education in their university. Participants were asked to respond to these same questions immediately and at 12 months after completion of the course. RESULTS: Respondents reported significant improvements in the adequacy of eight areas of EOL content taught within their settings. Participants noted improved effectiveness in their ability to teach EOL care, of their curriculum in including EOL care, and of their graduate nursing students in providing care to the dying. The total hours of EOL content added to graduate nursing curricula as a result of attending ELNEC-Graduate was 18.4 +/- 17.4 standard deviation (SD) hours. Additional unintended consequences were noted. CONCLUSION: The ELNEC-Graduate Program is a national initiative that effectively improves faculty expertise in EOL care and expands palliative care content within graduate nursing curricula.
Subject(s)
Inservice Training/standards , Terminal Care , Terminally Ill , Education, Nursing, Graduate , Female , Humans , Male , United StatesSubject(s)
Curriculum/standards , Education, Nursing, Graduate/organization & administration , Nurse Clinicians/education , Nurse Practitioners/education , Terminal Care/organization & administration , Communication , Evidence-Based Medicine , Humans , Interprofessional Relations , National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, U.S., Health and Medicine Division , Needs Assessment , Nurse Clinicians/organization & administration , Nurse Clinicians/psychology , Nurse Practitioners/organization & administration , Nurse Practitioners/psychology , Nurse's Role , Nursing Education Research , Quality of Health Care , Quality of Life , Terminal Care/psychology , Total Quality Management/organization & administration , United StatesABSTRACT
This article presents data from the 1-year follow-up of the three conferences targeted toward continuing education (CE) providers and staff development (SD) educators and reviews the train-the-trainer model used in disseminating the End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC) curriculum. The analysis has implications for educators to promote improved end-of-life (EOL) care in their own institutions.
Subject(s)
Education, Nursing, Continuing , Staff Development , Terminal Care , Curriculum , Follow-Up Studies , Humans , Models, Educational , Program Evaluation , United StatesABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Previous research has demonstrated that nursing education has not prepared nurses to provide optimum end-of-life (EOL) care; and yet, care of patients at the EOL is contingent on adequate preparation of nurses. To date, there has not been a unified or organized effort to broadly address the preparation of nurses in EOL care. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of the End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC), a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded project (2000-2004), was to develop and implement a comprehensive national effort to improve EOL care by nurses through a joint collaboration between the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) and the City of Hope Cancer Center. DESIGN AND SETTING: Based on the AACN Peaceful Death document, the ELNEC curriculum focuses on nine EOL core areas. This project is a synthesis of research and knowledge in EOL care and is intended to assist clinical nurses with implementing scientifically based care in practice. Eight national training courses followed the development of the core training curriculum to enhance EOL expertise in faculty in undergraduate nursing programs (five courses) as well as in continuing education programs (three courses). Development of the ELNEC program included detailed teaching materials to integrate EOL content into existing nursing curricula and clinical teaching and extensive follow up evaluation. RESULTS: The data revealed significant outcomes in the report of implementation in the nursing curriculum including an increase in the amount of content, perceived effectiveness of new graduates, and of faculty expertise in EOL care, and a broad dissemination of all modules geographically. CONCLUSION: This national organized effort is a major step toward preparing nurses in EOL care to improve care of the dying.
Subject(s)
Curriculum , Education, Nursing , Faculty, Nursing , Terminal Care , Humans , United StatesABSTRACT
The authors detail a Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) exercise that combines the Department of Health and Human Services' Secretary's Award for Innovations in Health Promotion and Disease Prevention (Secretary's Award) and the DHHS document Healthy People 2010. The authors discuss the writing competition as a way to encourage innovative problem solving and provide curricular instructions for using Healthy People 2010 and the Secretary's Award as a WAC exercise.
Subject(s)
Education, Nursing , Healthy People Programs , Teaching/methods , Writing , Humans , United StatesABSTRACT
The End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC) is a train-the-trainer educational program to help nursing faculty integrate care of dying patients and their families in the nursing curriculum. This article presents techniques derived from the ELNEC project regarding teaching the ethics module and the key content areas for developing ethical decision-making skills in end-of-life care. Competent end-of-life nursing care begins with an understanding of ethics and the potential affect on care of dying patients and their families.
Subject(s)
Curriculum , Education, Nursing/organization & administration , Ethics, Nursing/education , Teaching/methods , Terminal Care/ethics , Terminal Care/legislation & jurisprudence , Education, Nursing/methods , Euthanasia, Passive/ethics , Euthanasia, Passive/legislation & jurisprudence , Humans , Medical Futility/ethics , Palliative Care/ethics , Palliative Care/legislation & jurisprudence , Quality of Life , Resuscitation Orders/legislation & jurisprudence , United States , Withholding Treatment/ethicsSubject(s)
Curriculum/standards , Education, Nursing, Baccalaureate/methods , Education, Nursing, Continuing/methods , Palliative Care , Humans , Needs Assessment , Nurse's Role , Palliative Care/methods , Palliative Care/psychology , Palliative Care/standards , Professional Competence/standards , Quality Assurance, Health Care/organization & administration , Quality of Life , Teaching/methodsABSTRACT
Teaching loss, grief, and bereavement to nursing students should be an interactive process to stimulate critical thinking and address the affective domain of learning. Lecture as a teaching methodology may be the easiest to prepare and deliver; however, used alone, it is ineffective in identifying perceptions, fears, and issues related to dying and death. Personal and professional experiences of loss, grief, and bereavement are central to student's learning of effective and compassionate care of the dying patient and their family. Strategies that explore such experiences allow students to move forward and focus on the cognitive retention of content related to loss, grief, and bereavement, as well as the ability to learn related psychomotor skills. The authors discuss pedagogical methods for teaching student nurses about loss, grief, and bereavement utilizing the End of Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC) curriculum training materials.
