Attitudes about Care at the End of Life among Clinicians: A Quick, Reliable, and Valid Assessment Instrument

Abstract

Several initiatives to improve care at the end of life involve educational programs to influence clinicians’ attitudes about care for patients with terminal illnesses. The objective of this research was to develop and test a short and easily administered instrument for measuring physicians’ and nurses’ attitudes towards care at the end of life. The instrument was tested using a cross-sectional study of 50 clinicians (25 physicians and 25 nurses) from general medicine, cardiology, oncology, and geriatric medicine. Both reliability and validity were assessed, and the instrument was found to have acceptable test-retest reliability and construct validity. Such an assessment instrument may be useful in evaluating the impact of initiatives to modify attitudes towards terminal care and in improving the quality of care at the end of life.

Validity of the End-of-Life Professional Caregiver Survey To Assess for Multidisciplinary Educational Needs

“…We identified six domains: scientific and clinical knowledge/technical skills; communication/ interpersonal skills with patients, family members, and other clinicians; spiritual and cultural issues; ethical, professional, and legal principles; organizational skills; and attitudes, values, and feelings of health care professionals. We then evaluated existing survey tools, [6][7][8][9][10][11] and selected items that matched the six domains, resulting in 40 items. We edited the items to elicit different perceptions from different disciplines, formatted them to a 5-point Likert scale, transferred them to a web-based medium, and pilot-tested them on laptop computers at an annual meeting of the Connecticut Coalition to Improve End-of-Life Care.…”

“…None assesses educational needs across professions. 6,7 Thus we developed the End-of-life Professional Caregiver Survey (EPCS) as an instrument for assessing the palliative and EOL care-specific educational needs of multidisciplinary professionals. In this article we report on the validity of the EPCS, its factors, and its ability to discriminate among characteristics of a diverse multidisciplinary sample.…”

What questionnaires exist to measure the perceived competence of generalists in palliative care provision? A critical literature review

“…Four instruments were developed in the 1990s 16–19. The remaining tools were developed from 2000 to 2010 20–27…”

End-of-Life Decision Making in Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation Recipients

“…Nurses with hospice training reported greater perceived role responsibility and comfort levels in initiating discussions about EOL issues (Cramer et al, 2003). Bradley et al (2000) found that nurses frequently did not initiate discussions on critical EOL issues, preferring that the medical staff do so, which could result in delays of hospice referrals and depriving many terminally ill patients and families of the benefits of hospice services. open a barcode scanner on your smartphone, take a photo of the code, and your phone will link automatically.…”