Nurses’ perceptions of and barriers to the optimal end‐of‐life care in hospitals: A cross‐sectional study

Aims and objectives To assess nurses’ perceptions of what constitutes optimal end‐of‐life (EOL) care in hospital and evaluate nurses’ perceived barriers to EOL care delivery. Background Care of dying patients is common in hospitals. However, little is known about the important elements of and barriers to optimal EOL care from key service providers’ perspective, which is crucial for quality EOL care in hospital settings. Method This is a cross‐sectional survey. Nurses practising in hospitals recruited by convenience sampling completed self‐report survey questionnaires. STROBE checklist was used in study reporting. Results One hundred and‐seventy‐five nurses participated in the survey. The majority (70%) had experience in caring for dying patients. The five most highly perceived factors constituting optimal EOL care included the following: “families know and follow patient's EOL wishes”; “patients emotional concerns identified and managed well”; “patients participating in decision‐making”; “EOL care documents stored well and easily accessed”; and “provide private rooms and unlimited visiting hours for families of dying patients”. Top five barriers were “doctors are too busy”; “nurses are too busy”; “insufficient private room/space”; “nurses have limited training in EOL care”; and “families have unrealistic expectations of patient's prognosis.” Multivariate regression analysis identified that nurses without experience in caring for dying patients reported a significantly higher number of perceived barriers towards EOL care (p = .012). Those with postgraduate degree training reported significantly fewer perceived barriers (p = .007). Conclusion Findings identified essential elements for optimal hospital EOL care not only involving patients and families in EOL decision and care, but also documentation and environmental issues in the healthcare system level and the needs for strengthening manpower and expertise at palliative care policy level. Relevance to clinical practice This study revealed quantitative data to inform health service managers and policy makers in terms of training and service development/ re‐design for EOL care in hospital settings.