Analysis of content regarding death and bereavement in nursing texts.

Information contained in textbooks provides the foundation for undergraduate education and entry into clinical practice. Inadequate knowledge of health care professionals in end of life (EOL) has been documented and efforts are in progress to improve this care. This paper reports on a project to strengthen nursing education in EOL care. One of the three project goals was the evaluation of EOL content in 50 nursing textbooks. This paper reports findings in two of the nine areas of the analysis framework which are Death and Bereavement. Findings indicate significant deficiencies in the content within these texts. Improvement in text content will require collaboration of palliative care professionals and textbook publishers and can result in increased ability of nurses to improve EOL care. Copyright 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.