Procedure

At the beginning of the research, the participants were provided a thorough explanation of the study and notified that the participation was voluntary, and they could withdraw from the study at any time. All questionnaires were anonymous. The participants were informed about data confidentiality and signed informed consent forms. The self-administered, written questionnaire was delivered to each participant to complete at two time-points: pre-intervention and post-intervention. The first phase of the survey involved participants’ demographic characteristics, training requirements for palliative care, and assessment of their knowledge of palliative care and attitudes towards caring for dying patients and death. The training course, as an intervention, was customised according to the information collected from participants regarding training requirements and implemented over a three-week period. Participants were then given the PCQN, FATCOD-B, and DAP-R questionnaires for the second phase of the survey immediately upon completion of the intervention. Finally, baseline data were compared with post-intervention data to evaluate the effects of training on nurses’ knowledge of palliative care and their attitudes towards caring for the dying patients and death. The Ethics Committee of Guangzhou Medical University (L180920) approved the study protocol.