Determining the views of the health care vocational school students about 'palliative care'

Abstract

Halil Demir

Today, scientific and medical developments provide the opportunity to delay the death of people, on the other hand, this situation can sometimes be painful for patients. In order to overcome this difficult period with the least amount of pain, it pushed healthcare professionals to provide palliative care practices effectively in terminal patients. Palliative care has increased day by day and has taken its place as one of the health care services. This study aims at contributing to the theoretical gap in the international literature about attitudes of the healthcare vocational school students towards death and their perceptions of palliative care. In this regard, first of all, the definitions of palliative care made by several authors are presented in the literature. Later, the levels of perception by 213 Healthcare Vocational School Students studying in different programs at Istanbul Rumeli University were investigated between October 2019 to December 2019 using the face-to-face survey method to identify students’ characteristics, feelings and opinions about death and palliative care. The data obtained were evaluated using percentages and chi-square method, and t-Test and One-Way ANOVA tests were performed. Finally, the findings related to the attitudes of health vocational school students towards death and their perceptions of palliative care were discussed. Among the findings, 80.3% of the students have not yet received any training on palliative care, and 73.4% of the participants in the research were female students. Until today, studies that measure the perception levels of students who are candidates for doctors and nurses in the name of palliative care have been carried out, however healthcare vocational school students, have almost been ignored. It is thought that the evaluation of the perception levels of the students of the healthcare vocational school students, which will undertake essential duties in the health institutions, will contribute to the literature as it is one of the first studies on this subject. It is thought that the findings of the study, a generalization of education about palliative care, and healthcare vocational school students will increase their awareness of palliative care in the future.