Palliative Care as a Tool for Nursing Students and a Guarantee of Human Dignity

Abstract

Nursing exists primarily to care for individuals, and when providing palliative care, professionals with specialized knowledge and a high degree of human compassion are required to support patients and their families during the terminal stage of illness. From this perspective, it is possible to understand the impact of specialized knowledge that must be acquired during the training of nursing students, who later become professionals working in different public or private health institutions.

From the Salvadoran context, this study investigated the knowledge of palliative care among fifth-year Nursing students at the Catholic University of El Salvador, limiting the sample to the Regional Center of Ilobasco, considering that it is the only higher education institution in the paracentral area that trains nursing professionals closely involved in direct patient care.

The purpose of the study was to identify nursing students’ knowledge regarding the types of patients who require palliative care. Consequently, this research serves as an important precedent for efforts to justify a curriculum reform in the Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing and to incorporate palliative care as a subject within the specialized nursing area, addressing it in a holistic and humanistic way that promotes dignified care in the final stage of life.