Caring for Family Caregivers: a Pilot Test of an Online COMFORT™ SM Communication Training Module for Undergraduate Nursing Students

Family caregivers who provide care and support to cancer patients experience distress, burden, and decreased quality of life as a result of caregiving. Caregivers often turn to nurses for support; however, there is little training available for nurses on how to care for the family caregiver. Undergraduate nursing students have a high need to learn about engaging caregivers in care, but little content is presented to fulfill that need. Derived from the COMFORT (TM) (SM) communication curriculum, we developed a 1-h online educational module specifically addressing communication with family caregivers of cancer patients. Undergraduate nursing students (n = 128) from two accredited nursing programs completed a survey at the beginning and end of the module, in addition to answering unfolding response opportunities within the module. There was a significant increase in communication knowledge, attitude, and behaviors (p < .000) in post-test responses for students across all years of study. Knowledge based on responses to case study scenarios was more than 75% correct. Student open-ended responses to case-based scenarios featured in the module revealed student mastery and ability to apply module content (range, 40-56% across four scenarios). This online COMFORT (TM) (SM) communication training module is an innovative online cancer education tool for teaching about communication with family caregivers. This study finds the module effective for teaching undergraduate nursing students about communication with family and shows promise in interprofessional curricula as well.