Undergraduate Nursing Students Knowledge Regarding Grief Counseling at the tertiary institution in Namibia
Abstract
Mestilde Ntinda, Esther Kamenye and Taimi Amakali-Nauiseb*
Aim: The study aimed to assess the knowledge regarding grief counseling amongst the undergraduate degree-nursing students at the tertiary institution in Namibia.
Background: Grief counseling is designed to help people cope with the loss of a loved one. The researcher has observed that the undergraduate degree nursing students avoid grief counseling process and only the registered nurses were always left to do it.
Method: A quantitative cross- sectional descriptive design was employed. Simple random sampling method was used. Online questionnaires were sent to the undergraduate degree-nursing students using a link and the participants were 78.
Results: This study revealed that students are knowledgeable on some aspects of grief counselling. The knowledge gap identified by this study is that 21.8% of the participants agreed that it’s not mandatory for nurses to know how to give proper and effective grief counseling. 52.6% know how to initiate the grief counselling process and these findings can lead to complicated grief.
Conclusion: This study concluded that the knowledge of some undergraduate degree nursing student regarding grief counselling is limited.