THE ROLE OF TRAINING QUALIFIED PALLIATIVE CARE NURSES IN IMPROVING THE QUALITY OF LIFE OF PATIENTS

Abstract

Introduction. An important task of palliative care is to improve the quality of life of the incurable patient and his/her family members through an integrated approach with the aim of early detection and diagnosis of problems, appropriate treatment measures to alleviate physical and psychological suffering and preservation of the patient’s human dignity. The increase in the number of patients with incurable diseases in Ukraine has led to an urgent need to improve the training of palliative care specialists, as this is one of the indicators of the maturity of society. Hospice nurses must be professionally trained to provide palliative care at the undergraduate level and have the opportunity to improve their professional skills at the postgraduate level. In addition, constant contact with a dying patient often results in professional burnout of healthcare workers, so palliative care nurses should undergo appropriate psychological training to increase stress resistance and adequately respond to the inevitability of death.

The aim of the study – to analyze the role of nurses in improving the quality of life of palliative care patients and to prove the need to improve and systematize the training of professionally motivated staff to work in palliative care units to prevent emotional burnout syndrome.

The main part. Today, there are about 40 palliative care facilities in Ukraine, and it is planned to open such centers in each region of Ukraine. Still, this issue has been postponed until the end of hostilities in Ukraine. In 2018, a palliative care unit with 25 beds for patients with various pathologies was established and is now operating at City Hospital No. 10 of the Zaporizhzhia City Council. The unit comprises 13 junior nurses, 9 nurses with master’s or bachelor’s degrees, and 2 doctors. Modern palliative care places high demands on nurses, who must have a thorough knowledge of clinical medicine, pharmacology, and psychology, have communication skills, be sensitive, and be able to work in a team. It is known that constant contact with and care for incurable patients often leads to professional burnout among healthcare professionals. The study of this issue by K. Maslach and S. Jackson showed that almost half ((45.5±2.5) %) of the surveyed nurses had burnout syndrome, and the frequency of its development increased in people with more years of work experience.

Conclusions. The key person in palliative care is a nurse, whose task is to solve problems that arise in the patient, teach self-care, the basics of care, and emergency care for their family members. Therefore, the need to train palliative care nurses is an important issue, since in addition to professional knowledge of medicine, they need to acquire special knowledge determined by the specifics of their work, psycho-emotional stress, which contributes to the development of emotional burnout syndrome.