Preparing students to care for patients at the end of life

Are student nurses adequately prepared for their first encounter with death and dying in clinical practice? This article comes with a handout for a journal club discussion.

Abstract
Student nurses complete placements in a variety of clinical settings and it is not possible to predict what situations they may encounter, which makes adequate preparation a challenge. They are likely to encounter death and dying during clinical placements from the very start of their education, without necessarily having adequate preparation for the experience. At the University of Derby, 59 first-year students in adult nursing who had completed their first placement evaluated their preparedness to encounter patients at the end of life. They generally found that they lacked training, support and confidence. This article discusses the results of the study and explores how pre-registration nursing education could be improved in this area.

Citation: Westwood S, Brown M (2019) Preparing students to care for patients at the end of life. Nursing Times [online]; 115: 10, 43-46.

Authors: Stacey Westwood is adult nursing lecturer; Michelle Brown is discipline lead for adult nursing; both at the University of Derby.
This article has been double-blind peer reviewed
Scroll down to read the article or download a print-friendly PDF here (if the PDF fails to fully download please try again using a different browser)
Download the Nursing Times Journal Club handout here to distribute with the article before your journal club meeting
Click here for more NT Journal Club articles