Knowledge and attitudes regarding palliative care in Croatia - assessing primary healthcare professionals' viewpoint

Ema Slapnicar, Marion Tomicic

Keywords: family medicine, palliative care, general practitioners, primary care nurses

Background:

Palliative care is characterised by comprehensive approach to patients who suffer from incurable diseases, aiming to improve their quality of life. Primary palliative care is provided by general practitioner in cooperation with the multidisciplinary team and patient’s family. Due to the lack of resources and low awareness of healthcare professionals, palliative care in Croatia is often provided only for people whose curative treatment has been completed and whose disease is progressing rapidly. Therefore, palliative care and end-of-life care are often considered synonyms in Croatia, although the philosophy of palliative care is much broader.

Research questions:

To determine current attitudes, knowledge and practices of primary healthcare professionals (physicians, nurses) regarding palliative care in Croatia.

Method:

A cross-sectional study will be conducted among following primary healthcare professionals: general practitioners, community nurses and nurses working in home care institutions. Separate survey questionnaires will be used among physicians and nurses. The structure of both questionnaires is three-part: collecting general demographic data, evaluating attitudes and knowledge about palliative care using two validated questionnaires (Frommelt’s Attitude Toward Care of the Dying and Palliative Care Knowledge Test) and examining the respondents' personal experiences related to work in the palliative care system in Croatia.

Results:

Results of the research can point out strengths and weaknesses in knowledge and practices of primary palliative care providers in Croatia, which may help identify areas where education, interventions or strategy changes are needed.

Conclusions:

Lack of knowledge about palliative care among healthcare professionals is one of the most common obstacles in the implementation of high-quality palliative care.
Although in recent years there have been improvements of the system of palliative care in Croatia, it is not yet at the desired level of development. The first step in improving the quality of palliative care is the education of all members of team who provide palliative care.

Points for discussion:

How to obtain an insight into the initial knowledge and skills of healthcare professionals in matters of palliative care?

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