Palliative care aims to improve quality of life for people with serious illness and their families. One potential barrier to palliative care uptake is inaccurate knowledge and/or negative beliefs among the general population, which may inhibit early interest in, communication about, and integration of palliative care following subsequent illness diagnosis. We explored knowledge and beliefs about palliative care among the general public using nationally-representative data collected in 2018 as part of the cross-sectional Health Information National Trends Survey. Only individuals who had heard of palliative care ( n = 1,162, M age = 51.8, 64% female) were queried on knowledge and beliefs. We examined whether self-assessed level of awareness of palliative care (i.e., knowing a little vs. enough to explain it) was associated with the relative likelihood of having accurate/positive beliefs, inaccurate/negative beliefs, or responding “don’t know” to questions about palliative care. Respondents who indicated knowing a lot about palliative care had more accurate versus inaccurate knowledge than those who knew a little on only two of six items and more positive attitudes on only one of three items. In particular, respondents with greater awareness were equally likely to report that palliative care is the same as hospice and requires stopping other treatments, and equally likely to believe that palliative care means giving up and to associate palliative care with death. Those with higher awareness were less likely than those with lower awareness to respond “don’t know,” but greater awareness was not necessarily associated with having accurate or positive beliefs about palliative care as opposed to inaccurate or negative beliefs. Thus, even members of the general public who perceived themselves to know a lot about palliative care were often no less likely to report inaccurate knowledge or negative beliefs (versus accurate and positive, respectively). Findings suggest a need to improve awareness and attitudes about palliative care.

Background and Purpose. The cost of illness in cancer care and the subsequent distress has attracted scrutiny. Guidelines recommend enhanced discussion of costs, assuming this will reduce both stress and costs. Little is known about patient attitudes about cost considerations influencing treatment decisions. Methods. A convenience-sample survey of patients currently receiving radiation and/or intravenous chemotherapy at an outpatient cancer center was performed. Assessments included prevalence and extent of financial burden, level of financial distress, attitudes about using costs to influence treatment decisions, and frequency or desirability of cost discussions with oncologists. Results. A total of 132 participants (94%) responded. Overall, 47% reported high financial stress, 30.8% felt well informed about costs prior to treatment, and 71% rarely spoke to their

Examination of the types of complex relations described here can benefit theory development, empirical testing of theories and intervention design. Doing so will advance the understanding of mechanisms involved in regulation of health behaviours and the effectiveness of interventions to change health behaviours.

The association between depressive symptoms and both smoking and fruit and vegetable consumption differs as a function of race/ethnicity. These findings have implications for understanding the extent to which negative affective states influence health behaviors across different racial/ethnic groups, and for developing interventions that effectively target smoking and fruit and vegetable consumption among different racial/ethnic subgroups.

No abstract