Ethical sensitivity of emergency service employees and their thoughts about and knowledge levels concerning palliative care

Introduction and Purpose: Emergency services are units where patients in need of palliative care frequently get medical help and sometimes spend too much time due to system-related problems. Under these circumstances, emergency service employees establish an intense communication with palliative care patients and patient relatives. In order to provide patients effective care, the personnel providing emergency medicine service need to have sufficient knowledge and equipment in procuring palliative and end-of-life care in the emergency service. With this study, it is aimed to examine the knowledge levels of emergency service employees concerning palliative care, as well as their educational background and approach to end-of-life care and to investigate whether that has a correlation with ethical sensitivity or not. Thus, awareness of emergency service employees about palliative care will be created. Material and Method: The sample of the cross-sectional and descriptive study consisted of 100 emergency service employees working in the city centers of Tokat and Kayseri. The data were collected using a questionnaire form containing sociodemographic characteristics of the emergency service employees and their thoughts about palliative care and also the Ethical Sensitivity Questionnaire. The data were evaluated using mean±standard deviation, percentage distributions, t-test and Anova test and the significance was accepted to be p<0.05. Findings: A total of 100 emergency service employees (48 men, 52 women) whose age average was 32,16±7,91 years participated in the study. It was determined that a great majority of the participants (63%) had not received palliative care training before. While the palliative care score average was found to be 49,10±8,25; the total score average of the Ethical Sensitivity Scale was found to be 78,73±20,97. The participants had a higher ethical sensitivity and moderate knowledge levels concerning palliative care. No significant difference was found between the variables of "gender, education, occupation, palliative knowledge and in-service education in the institution" on the total Ethical Sensitivity Questionnaire scores of the emergency service employees (p>0,05). As a result of comparing the palliative care questionnaire with Ethical Sensitivity Questionnaire; no significant difference could be determined in the statements outside, "I try not to think about the matter of death" (p=0,003) (F=6,168) (p>0,05). Conclusion: In order to raise awareness of the issues of palliative care and ethical sensitivity, there is a need for palliative care trainings before graduation and in-service trainings after graduation. The trainings should be repeated at certain intervals to keep the knowledge up-to-date. Keywords: Emergency Service, Ethical Sensitivity, End-of-Life Care, Palliative Care, Knowledge Level