Attitudes of nurses to palliative care in nursing homes in the Perth metropolitan region

Zanna and Rempel (1988) have proposed that attitudes are a summary evaluation of an attitude object based on three classes of information, namely: cognitive information, affective information and behavioural information. This model has mainly been tested in the social groups and social policies area investigating two classes of information: cognitive and affective, and therefore there is a need for research to test the validity of this model in other areas. The present study applies the model to the area of palliative care in nursing homes. 76 directors of nursing, 76 clinical nurse specialists, and 76 nursing assistants working in nursing homes, completed a questionnaire in which they were asked (a) to make an evaluation of their overall attitude on a 7-point semantic differential scale, (b) to write down their own beliefs and (c) affects in response to the attitude object "palliative care in nursing homes" and then rate these beliefs and affects on a 7-point Likert Scale (d) to answer 18 factual knowledge questions about palliative care, and (e) to supply some demographic information. The results indicated that cognitive and affective information significantly and independently predicted the attitudes of nurses to palliative care in nursing homes.

Grantor dc:publisher

Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia

Year dc:date

1995

Author dc:creator

• Cohen, Lynne

• Nursing home care
• Nurses
• Attitudes
• Palliative treatment.
• Geriatric Nursing

Repository record dc:identifier

https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/1179

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:ro.ecu.edu.au:theses-2180