Archives of Mental Health (Jan 2021)
Knowledge, awareness, and attitude of health professions student's towards end-of-life patient care
Abstract
Objectives: Provision of ethical medical care is the totem pole of the health-care system and to make appropriate decisions while providing the end-of-life (EOL) care is essential for all physicians. The aim of this study was to assess the knowledge, awareness, and attitude of health professions students (HPSs) about the bioethics of EOL medical care. Methodology: This cross-sectional study was carried out in all colleges of our University for Health Sciences, Jeddah Campus from September 2019 to December 2019. A predesigned and validated questionnaire about end of life patient care was adopted to achieve the purpose of the study. Results: A total of 522 students responded to this survey, of them, 290 (55.6%) were male, while 232 (44.4%) were female with a ratio of 1:1.25. Also, 226 (43.3%) of the respondents were from College of Medicine (COM), 142 (27.2%) from College of Health Professions (COSHP), 86 (16.5%) from College of Applied Medical Sciences (CAMS), and 68 (13.0%) from College of Nursing (CON). 44.9% of the males and 52.6% of females had a disagreement with the statement that patient has the right to end his or her own life of which 24.8% of COM, 27.9% of CAMS, 35.3% of CON, and 26.85% of COSHP strongly disagreed (P < 0.001). Additionally, most of the HPSs agreed to that terminally ill patients can die peacefully at home of which 69.9% were of COM, 46.5% of CAMS, 41.2% of CON, and 46.5% of COSHP students (P < 0.001). The analysis of data showed that COM and CON students' bioethical knowledge and awareness about EOL care was higher than that of CAMS and COSHP. Conclusions: The awareness about the bioethical concepts of EOL care was good among the HPSs of KSAU-HS, however this study identifies a need of introducing the bioethical concepts of palliative care in the curriculum.
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