A STUDY TO ASSESS THE EFFECTIVENESS OF STRUCTURED TEACHING PROGRAMME ON KNOWLEDGE AND ATTITUDE REGARDING EUTHANASIA AMONG STAFF NURSES IN SELECTED HOSPITALS AT MANGALURU

ABSTRACT Background: Advances in medicine have led to significant progress in prolonging life. At the same time this progress has brought to the fore issues of quality of life, and heightened debates with respect to euthanasia. The word “euthanasia”, derived from the Greek words “eu” (good) and “thanatos” (death), literally means “good death”. Euthanasia is defined as the administration of lethal drugs at the explicit request of the patient with the explicit intention of shortening the patient"s life. Euthanasia is generally classified as either active or passive, and voluntary or involuntary euthanasia. Research on euthanasia and PAS (Physician assisted suicide)has mainly concentrated on physicians, due to the nature of their roles and responsibilities; however, the specificity of nursing expertise and their experiences in providing EOL (End of life) care means that nurses play a major role in caring for dying patients and dealing with requests to hasten death. While nurses can make a significant contribution to the quality of care by providing professional assistance and counseling for patients, families, physicians and fellow nurses, even in countries where PAS is penalized, and despite the involvement of the nursing profession at an international level in euthanasia, little is known about their attitudes, knowledge and experiences in this area Objectives: The objectives of the study aretoassess the To assess the attitude of ICU staff nurses regarding euthanasia, To determine the association between attitude of ICU staff nurses with selected demographic variables such as age, experience, religion, professional qualification, critically ill patients in house, number of death witnessed and end of life care given. Methodology: A pre experimental study was conducted among 60 staff nurses who were selected by nonprobability purposive sampling technique. The study was conducted in Indiana Hospital, Mangaluru. Data was collected through demographic proforma, structured knowledge questionnaire and euthanasia attitude scale. The data collected was analysed and interpreted based on descriptive and inferential statistics. Result: With regard to the level of knowledge majority of the staff nurses 51.67% had inadequate knowledge, 40% were having moderate level of knowledge and only 8.33% of the samples were having adequate knowledge and majority of the staff nurses 56.67% had neutral attitude, 38.33% were having negative attitude and only 5% of the samples were having positive attitude regarding euthanasia in the pre test assessment. After giving the structure teaching programme majority 56.67% had moderate level of knowledge, 43.33% of them had adequate knowledge and none of them had inadequate knowledge and majority i.e. 58.33% had neutral attitude, 33.34% of them had positive attitude and only 8.33% of them had negative attitude in the post test. The overall mean, SD and mean percentage of pre-test knowledge scores regarding euthanasia were 8.68±3.83 and 37.73% respectively. The overall post test mean, SD and mean percentage of knowledge score was 15.71±3.35 and 68.30% respectively. The overall mean, SD and mean percentage of pre-test attitude scores regarding euthanasia were 41.10±13.75 and 39.14% respectively. The overall post test mean, SD and mean percentage of attitude score was 66.01±14.70 and 62.86% respectively. The calculated „t" value in all the areas of knowledge and attitude was higher than the table value (t=1.6711) at p