Knowledge of and willingness to promote advanced care planning among oncology nurses in southwest China.

Background: Nurses feature prominently in promoting advance care planning (ACP), but only a limited amount of relevant research has been conducted from the nurses' viewpoint, and little is known about the nurses' knowledge of and their willingness to promote ACP in China.

Aims: The aims of this study were to investigate oncology nurses' knowledge of and their willingness to promote ACP, and to explore associated factors.

Methods: A multi-centre study was conducted to investigate 350 nurses in the oncology departments of four university hospitals in southwestern China. Cluster sampling was used in data collection, which involved three categories of questionnaires concerning demographic characteristics, knowledge about ACP and willingness to promote ACP. Chi-squared tests and multiple linear regression were employed in data analysis.

Results: Some 293 valid questionnaires were collected, among which, 60.1% of respondents never received palliative care education, 89.1% never received training about ACP and 72.7% had not even heard of ACP. Nurses with higher position titles (χ=18.41, p<0.001) and longer working experience (χ=12.25, p=0.001) were more likely to have received palliative care education; nurses with higher educational background levels (χ=12.91, p<0.001), higher position titles (χ=9.77, p=0.003) and longer working experience (χ=7.92, p=0.006) were more likely to have learned about ACP; nurses with higher position titles had more access to relevant training (χ=5.10, p=0.03). Furthermore, whether the nurse had 'heard about ACP' (B=3.113, p=0.018) and 'received training about ACP' (B=3.894, p=0.04) were both associated with their willingness to promote ACP.

Conclusions: The findings of this study indicated that oncology nurses were highly inclined to promote ACP, but limited by their lack of knowledge and understanding of it. Therefore, a systematic and adequate training programme about ACP for nurses is an urgent requirement to effectively enhance the implementation of ACP in China.