Background: About a decade after the introduction of palliative care teaching for undergraduate nurses and medical students in Uganda, it is unclear to what extent the course impacts students’ understanding, perceptions and orientation to deliver palliative and end-of-life care. Objectives: To (1) explore final-year nursing and medical students’ knowledge and perceptions of palliative and end-of-life care, (2) examine students’ orientation and perceived self-efficacy to provide palliative and end-of-life-care. Design: A multicentre exploratory qualitative study. Methods: A total of 82 undergraduate nursing and medical students were selected from seven medical and nursing schools in Uganda. Data were collected through 10 face-to-face focus group discussions using a pilot-tested interview guide and analysed using inductive thematic analysis. Results: Five master themes emerged: (1) Palliative care as a concept with multiple meanings, (2) Misinformation about palliative care, opiates and pain management, (3) Students’ experiences of the course, (4) Dilemmas in knowledge and action, and (5) Palliative and end-of-life care as emotional labour. Conclusion: Participants generally had inadequate and varied understanding of, and very few demonstrated low willingness and limited confidence to provide, palliative and end-of-life care. They blamed this mainly on the huge emotional labour of palliative/end-of-life care and inadequate teaching and/or limited clinical exposure.
Natuhwera et al. (Sun,) studied this question.