Assessing Medical Students’ Confidence towards Provision of Palliative Care: A Cross-Sectional Study

Shih-Ya Leung and Eliza Lai-Yi Wong
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Shih-Ya Leung: JC School of Public Health and Primary Care, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Eliza Lai-Yi Wong: JC School of Public Health and Primary Care, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 15, 1-11

Abstract: Under a surging demand for palliative care, medical students generally still show a lack of confidence in the provision in abroad studies. This cross-sectional study aims to investigate the confidence and its association with knowledge, attitude and exposure on providing palliative care among medical undergraduates with a self-administered questionnaire to improve the international phenomenon. Full-time local medical undergraduates were recruited to obtain information regarding the demographics, confidence, knowledge, attitude and exposure on palliative care; the information was collected from July 2020 to October 2020. Questions on confidence (10-items), knowledge (20-items), attitude (10-items) and exposure were referenced from validated indexes and designed from literature review. Confidence level was categorized into “Confident” and “Non-confident” as suggested by studies to facilitate data analysis and comparison. Of the 303 participants, 59.4% were “Non-confident” (95% C.I.: 53.8% to 65.0%) in providing palliative care on average. Among medical students, knowledge ( p = 0.010) and attitude ( p = 0.003) are significantly positively associated with the confidence to provide palliative care, while exposure to death of family/friends ( p = 0.024) is negatively associated. This study begins an investigation on the research area in Hong Kong primarily. The confidence of local medical students should be enhanced to provide palliative care in their future. It thus highlights the importance of the medical curriculum and provides insights to remove barriers responsively to improve the overall confidence and the quality of palliative care.

Keywords: palliative care; confidence; medical students; end-of-life care; KAP (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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