Palliative care a tool for nursing students and guarantee of the human dignity

Abstract

Nursing has its reason for being in caring for the person and when performing palliative care, professionals with specialized knowledge and a high degree of human warmth are needed to support the patient and family in the terminal stage of the disease. From this approach, the impact of the specialized knowledge that must be acquired from the training of nursing students, who become professionals providing their services in different institutions of the public or private health sector, can be determined. Therefore, from the Salvadoran context, the knowledge about palliative care of fifth-year students of the Nursing Degree of Universidad Católica de El Salvador was investigated, limiting the sample to the Regional Center of Ilobasco, considering that it is the only higher level educational center of the paracentral area where nursing professionals closely related to the direct care of the patient are trained. The purpose of the study was to identify knowledge in nursing students about the type of patients that require palliative care. Consequently, the research is an important precedent to make efforts to justify a reform of the curriculum of the undergraduate degree in nursing and incorporate this area as a subject of the same.