安寧療護實務與研究方法

This course covers the theoretical base and process of development, planning, implementation, and evaluation of hospice and palliative care with different populations (i.e. cancer patients and non-cancer patients) across different settings (i.e. 2 inpatient hospital, outpatient clinics, community care and home care etc.) nationally and internationally. This course comprises of two main components: 1) clinical practice, and 2) research methods. During the course, we will share experiences on conducting palliative care research using different research designs (e.g. clinical trials, survey research, epidemiological research methods, qualitative research methods, and mixed method study) as well as having clinical scenarios to facilitate student’s critical thinking. Key considerations while conducting research with palliative care patients will be emphasized and discussed. For example, how to approach and invite palliative care patients to participate in research (recruitment)? How to write a research proposal? How to gain ethics approval? How to use a statistician? and how to publish the work? We encourage students to use their own research interests and questions to develop their knowledge on palliative care. However, no previous knowledge on palliative care would be fine for this course as this course will also cover the very basic concept of hospice and palliative care. Due to the international audience/students enrolled in this program, this course will also cover cross-culture issues in palliative care research and practice. Furthermore, we will also include how palliative care practice and research face the public health threats of international concern, such as SARS and COVID-19. This course incorporates lectures, group discussions, seminars, work shop, and presentations.

After completing this module, the students should be able to, 1. Describe the core value of hospice and palliative care and its implication in healthcare 2. Identify high-quality research papers on palliative care 3. Describe the key elements of a high-quality research on palliative care 4. Describe the flaw of the palliative care research design, analysis method, and reporting of the research findings 5. Reflect what the students have learned to their own studies 6. Provide comments and suggestions to the peers’ proposal or selected papers for refinement 7. Develop idea or write a proposal regarding palliative care research (if the students choose palliative care research for their thesis) 8. Understand the principle of conducting a research with palliative care patients and design research materials (e.g. questionnaires, interview topic guides or information sheet) 9. Understand how to gain ethics approval for palliative care research 10. Use theory to explain/describe clinical practice or underpin research design

1. Course participation 20% 2. Group discussion, case study and seminar 20% 3. Assignment and short essay 20% 3. Final presentation 40%

Required Text book: Addington-Hall, J. M., Bruera, E., Higginson, I. J., & Payne, S. (2009). Research Methods in Palliative Care. UK: Oxford. Recommended Textbooks: 1. Polit, D. F., & Beck, C. T. (2017). Nursing research: Generating and assessing evidence for nursing practice. (10th ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. 2. Creswell, J. W. (2018). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage.