Improving End of Life Communication: Rural Staff Nurse Education

Nurses should feel comfortable and prepared to have conversations about the death and dying process with patients and families (American Nurses Association, 2016). Despite this, many nurses feel inadequately prepared for these conversations (Peterson, Johnson, Scherr, & Halvorsen, 2016). Communication training for healthcare professionals significantly increases communication skills, confidence, and comfort in discussing death, dying, and EOL (Brighton et al., 2017). The purpose of this Doctor of Nursing (DNP) Project was to determine whether implementation of an EOL communication skills program for staff nurses increases nurses’ feelings of comfort and competence with EOL communication with patients and families. The design was an evidence-based quality improvement program. The C-COPE (Comfort with Communication in Palliative and End of Life Care) instrument was used to quantitatively assess nurses’ comfort and competence with EOL communication before, after, and eight weeks following a communication skills training intervention based on the COMFORT curriculum. Findings suggest that EOL communication skills training significantly increases nurse’s feelings of comfort and competence with EOL communication with patients and families