Development of student competencies for palliative care.

AIM: Identify the palliative care learning needs of healthcare students and determine the acceptability of an innovative learning strategy for palliative care named competencia para cuidar en el hogar-paliar (CUIDAR-PALIAR) aimed to increase students' competencies. METHODS: A single-group mixed methods design was used. A questionnaire was designed and semi-structured interviews were used to determine the palliative care competencies of undergraduate students; 90 students participated in the strategy. FINDINGS: The learning needs of students are: approaches to death and loss, how to intervene with the patient's family, understanding of the palliative care context, management of the patient's pain and symptoms and the development of therapeutic communication skills. CONCLUSION: The strategy is highly accepted by students, and statistically significant increases in palliative care were observed before and after the intervention. These preliminary results justify future interventions due to the potential effect of the strategy CUIDAR-PALIAR in the development of competencies for palliative care in undergraduate students.

Foundations of Practice.

A highly disproportionate burden of cancer is manifested in the world's poorest societies. Since 2016, I have volunteered with the Washington, DC-based organization Health Volunteers Overseas and have provided oncology and palliative nursing education and consultation in Vietnam, Honduras, and Bhutan. In addition, I have volunteered with Living Room International in Kenya, focusing on hospice nursing resource enhancement. I have traveled more than 50,000 miles to those four resource-impoverished nations and witnessed hardships beyond description.

Experimental classroom games: a didactic tool in palliative care. / Los juegos experimentales de aula: una herramienta didáctica en cuidados paliativos.

Objective To evaluate the effect of a games-based intervention on palliative care nursing students' scores on the Collett-Lester Fear of Death Scale. The challenge was to innovate and integrate grief-related theory and experiences into the classroom. Method Quasi-experimental study. Before and after the games-based intervention, 101 and 111 students completed the questionnaires, respectively. The intervention was performed in the context of a palliative care class taught during the first semester of the third year of the nursing programme. Results The students obtained moderate mean scores on the variable fear of death (between 14 and 19) at both time points (pre- and post-intervention). Both men and women indicated a heightened sense of fear post-intervention and a decrease in self-perceived emotional preparedness, which support the value of the games for exposing the student to situations that closely approximated reality. Conclusion The use of games as a didactic tool in the classroom context helped the students recognize the fear generated by proximity to death in the patient and family and in the student him- or herself.

A Multiorganization Approach to Improving Palliative Care in Honduras.

Since 2011, oncology nurses and physicians in the United States have been volunteering in Honduras with the International Cancer Corps (ICC), organized by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), in partnership with Health Volunteers Overseas (HVO). In this article, the authors will summarize the work of the ASCO/HVO ICC teams that developed educational programs with local partners to improve cancer and palliative care in Honduras.

Educational process in palliative care and the thought reform.

OBJECTIVES: To know the contributions of the educational process in Palliative Care during the undergraduate level for the professional action of nurses in the care of patients at the end of life. METHODS: This is a qualitative research, with discursive thematic analysis, based on Morin's theory of complexity. It was attended by seven newly-trained nurses and six nursing teachers from a Nursing Undergraduate Course. RESULTS: It has found disruptions and the development of new ways of thinking and caring for patients at the end of life, highlighting that these patients should be treated with therapies to mitigate their signs and symptoms until death, focusing on quality of life; moreover, their psychosocial and spiritual aspects should be appreciated. CONCLUSIONS: The educational process in palliative care seems to be essential for nurses, as a way of organizing and systematizing patient care. It becomes indispensable that nursing programs also provide the students with the development of the awareness of the complexity of the human being and its relationship with the multiple biopsychosocial and spiritual aspects.