Determination of nurses's knowledge level about palliative care

This study was conducted as a cross-sectional descriptor for aim of determining the knowledge and applications of palliative care of nurses working with adult patients. The sample of the research was formed by 502 nurses who accepted to work from Yozgat State Hospital, Tokat State Hospital and Ankara Ulus State Hospitals. The data were collected by the researcher using the questionnaire prepared in the literature and the Palliative Care Knowledge Test (PCKT). The Palliative Care Knowledge Test was developed by Nakazawa et al. In 2009 and the cronbach alpha value is 0.81. The validity and reliability of this test in our country was done by Seven (2015) and the cronbach alpha value was 0.91. The palliative care information test consists of 5 sub-dimensions and a total of 20 items. Data obtained from the study were evaluated using the number and percentage tests, Mann Whitney U and Kruskall Wallis-H tests in statistical analysis.. In study, the information point average of the nurses about the Palliative Care Knowledge Test (PCKT) was found to be "6.29 ± 3.38" out of 20 points. It was determined that none of the nurses who were included in the survey did not get full points and the lowest score was "0" and the highest score was "18". When the palliative care knowledge test subscales were examined, it was seen that the nurses got the lowest score from the philosophy subscale (0.93±0.73) and the highest score was from psychiatric problems (1.64±1.38). There was a statistically significant difference between the nurses' educational status, the department they worked in, the position they worked in, the information they received about palliative care, and the status of care for palliative care patients and the points they received from the Palliative Care Knowledge Test (PCKT).