HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS’ KNOWLEDGE AND PERCEPTION IN THE PROVISION OF PALLIATIVE CARE IN PATIENTS WITH NON-CANCER LIFE-LIMITING CHRONIC DISEASE IN A PRIVATE HOSPITAL IN BANGKOK,THAILAND

Abstract

Although palliative care could gain benefits of healthcare system, the good management of palliative care is not broadly done to all kinds of illnesses. Patients with chronic illness have impaired quality of life and emotional well-being but have less obtainment of palliative care. This study aimed to access the knowledge, perception and provision of palliative care in patients with non-cancer, chronic-illness and life-limiting diseases and to explore the socio demographic factors associate to knowledge and provision of palliative care. This cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted in one selected private hospital. 227 healthcare providers including doctors, nurses, pharmacists and physical therapists were recruited, self-administration questionnaires were used for data collection. For the results of palliative care knowledge, the questionnaire contains 23 items about the principle of palliative care and symptom management. The participants had good knowledge (x̅ = 18.97, S.D. =2.11, Min =8, Max =23). Almost half of the participants (49.1%) had answered incorrectly about palliative care in patients with congestive heart. The factors of healthcare providers’ demography that associate to to the level of palliative care knowledge statistical significantly were age (p= 0.04) and position of work (p =0.001) (p < 0.05). In their perception, the aspects that had the most effect to palliative care were ethic and legal issues (x̅ = 4.18, S.D. = 0.648) and organization and policy (x̅ = 4.17, S.D. = 0.584). They also mainly agreed that palliative care should be provided by multidisciplinary care team (x̅ = 4.35, S.D. =0.622). For the perception of decision making, the participants mainly agreed that palliative care should have jointly established between patients and family and healthcare team (x̅ = 4.37, S.D. = 0.583). For the provision of palliative care, the behavior that healthcare providers mainly performed is providing care gently (x̅ =4.48, S.D. = 0.693) but had less conversation about the aims of life and the life after death with patient (x̅ =2.80, S.D. =1.350). For the factors of healthcare providers’ demography that associate the level of provision of palliative care statistical significantly were position of work (p = 0.029) and palliative care education (p =0.002) (p < 0.05). It could be concluded that palliative care knowledge, cooperation of multidisciplinary care team and training palliative care skill are important for healthcare providers to cope with the patients and families. It is to explore needs and plan for goal of care and provide the best quality of palliative care for them.