Abstract
Despite increasing medical advances, intensive care unit registered nurses frequently care for patients at the end of life. Registered nurses have identified insufficient education as a major contributor to inadequate communication, symptom recognition, and symptom management in this population. The purpose of the project was to increase knowledge regarding evidence-based practices in management related to end-of-life care. Project implementation occurred in 6 intensive care units at a 1019-bed academic, tertiary care hospital and included providing registered nurses with a 3.5-hour classroom-based educational session on end-of-life nursing management. Before the educational sessions, participants (n = 46) completed a demographic sheet and a multiple-choice pretest reflective of foundational intensive care unit end-of-life nursing knowledge. After the educational session, the same test was administered as a posttest. A statistically significant change (P < .001) existed between the mean pretest scores (79.4%) and mean posttest scores (96.7%) of participants. In addition, 100% of participants met the external benchmark of an aggregated mean posttest score of 80% or higher. Future research should focus on assessing specific areas of end-of-life nursing knowledge deficit, determining optimal educational content delivery methods, and evaluating the clinical impact of increasing knowledge on patient symptom recognition and management.