Nursing students' knowledge of palliative care: a short literature review.

Background Health professionals must be knowledgeable and skilled in providing palliative care. This short report reviews the literature that has assessed student nurses' knowledge of palliative care. Method The following databases were searched: CINHAL, ScienceDirect, Medline, PubMed and Google Scholar for manuscripts published from 2014 to 2020. Only six articles met the inclusion criteria and were thoroughly reviewed. Findings Students were found to have a poor knowledge of palliative care, especially the management of a patient's symptoms and the definition of palliative care. Conclusion Integrating palliative care education within nursing curricula is a priority, although the best method to accomplish this is yet to be established.