End-of-Life Nursing Knowledge Among Nursing Students

Background: The U.S. health care system is poorly designed to meet the needs of patients at the end of life (EOL) and their families. Nursing students often have reported feeling inadequate to provide EOL care. Method: Following an EOL simulation, reflective journals were collected from junior and senior nursing students and analyzed for themes using qualitative content analysis. The condensed meaning units were abstracted into codes based on Carper's fundamental patterns of knowing. Results: Thirty-one junior and senior nursing students (mean age, 21.04 +/- 0.52 years, 96.2% female) in a baccalaureate program participated in the study.The broad themes of student reflections included empirics (theoretical or natural historical) aesthetics (transformative nursing action), personal (interpersonal process of nurse-patient interaction), and ethics (emotion influences actions). Conclusion: Student perception and participation in all roles contributes to the gestalt of the experience of a highly emotional EOL simulation for both students and faculty.