Abstract
Grief care provided by visiting nurses has an important role with the family through continued involvement before and after the patient's death. Given that there were few support and educational systems for nurses offering grief care in Japan, this study aimed to develop a grief care education program for visiting nurses. The educational focus was to improve visiting nurses' knowledge and motivation and actions for providing grief care and to promote networking between participants.
The study design was a longitudinal 1-group pretest-posttest study. Participants were a convenience sample of 114 nurses who had applied for the program in response to a recruiting announcement mailed to home visit nursing care stations in the suburbs of Tokyo. The education program was conducted in a single session consisting of a lecture, a case study, narrative, and reflection. The program was evaluated at 4 different times before and after the program using anonymous self-report questionnaires. Data were statistically analyzed using repetitive 1-way analysis of variance and Bonferroni multiple comparison.
The score for "understanding of grief care" and "provide grief care through multiprofessional collaboration" scored significantly higher after the program. "The quality of my nursing practice improved" showed a significant rise. "Promotion of networking" scored high just after the program, but later, the scores were significantly lower.
Therefore, participants deepened their understanding of grief care and learned to support bereaved families in collaboration with other professions. Creating an education program can provide mutual support against stress and contribute to learning, if it is done with awareness of where nurses have a designated meeting place for supporting each other.