Wei Shu Lai
National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan
Title: The last duties - integration of immediate post mortem care and acute bereavement care: Development of competency-based nursing entrustable professional activities (EPAs)
Biography
Biography: Wei Shu Lai
Abstract
Integrated immediate postmortem care and acute bereavement care can help bereaved family members deal with strong emotions and physical pain caused by acute grief following the death of a patient. However, the integration of immediate postmortem care and acute bereavement care is lacking in nursing education. Competency-based milestones will be served as a framework for developing entrustable professional activities (EPAs) which may contribute to enhancing nursing students’ competence in providing adequate acute bereavement care when carrying out postmortem care. The purpose of this study is to develop competency-based nursing EPAs that integrate immediate postmortem care and acute bereavement care. Two- phase focus group was applied in this study. During phase one, six transdisciplinary experts of end-of-life care were invited to discuss the content domain, competence indicators for each milestone level, and transdisciplinary cooperation in the implementation of integrated immediate postmortem care and acute bereavement care EPAs. Data were analyzed using a content analysis approach. In second phase, a consensus meeting with the experts was held to confirm the content of EPAs, establish content validity, and accordingly develop a EPAs assessment tool. The findings in this study indicated five levels of EPAs and their competence indicators. The competency-based EPAs that integrate immediate postmortem care and acute bereavement care can serve as the basis for training in end-of-life care.