Objectives: To describe, critically appraise and synthesise research regarding nurses' perceptions of their knowledge, skills or experiences in providing end-of-life care to hospitalised adults to help inform both future educational and practice initiatives.
Design: Mixed studies review.
Data sources: MEDLINE, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, Web of Science and SCOPUS databases were searched for the years 2004-June 2018, along with journal hand-searching and reference list searching.
Review methods: Two independent reviewers screened the titles and abstracts of studies. Data extraction and quality assessment using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool was conducted independently by two reviewers. Disagreements were adjudicated by a third reviewer. Study findings were synthesised thematically.
Results: Nineteen studies met the inclusion criteria. Of them, ten were quantitative, eight qualitative and one mixed-method. All but one quantitative study were conducted in the United States and all but one used some form of survey. The qualitative studies were conducted in a variety of countries and all but one used some form of interview for data collection. Five themes were identified including nurse as a protecting provider, nurse as an advocate, nurse as a reflective practitioner, obstacles to providing quality end-of-life care and aids to providing quality end-of-life care.
Conclusions: Registered Nurses have aligned their end-of-life care with practice with the profession's expectations and are enacting a patient centred approach to their practice. They rely on reflective practices and on the support of others to overcome organisational, educational and emotional the challenges they to providing quality end-of-life care.
Keywords: Clinical competence; End-of-life care; Mixed study review; Palliative care; Patient advocacy; Reflective practitioner; Systematic review.
Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.