Is Palliative Care a Perceived Need of Medical Post Graduate Students of Mumbai, India?

Abstract

Introduction : Present health care in India relies on secondary prevention with less attention onpalliative care. Knowledge, attitude and practices among palliative care does not seem to be uniformly distributed in India, more so in the second most populous state Maharashtra. Hence,a study was conducted among post graduate students of a medical college, Mumbai to assess the same. Material and Methods :A cross sectional study was conducted amongst conveniently selected 100 final year post graduate students of clinical departments in a randomly selected medical college in Maharashtra. The data was collected through pre tested questionnaire from May 2019 to July 2019. It was entered in Microsoft excel and analyzed in percentages. Necessary permissions andwritten consent were obtained from the participants.Results : All the participants 100 (100%) knew about palliative care. Forty(40%) were aware about palliative care needs of the patients like pain relief, spiritual, psychosocial care but none of them (0%) were aware that it helps to reduce financial hardships. Only 19(19%) of participants were aware that palliative care starts when the patient is diagnosed with chronic illness. Eighty (80%) participants said that they would advise palliative care to chronically ill patients but 70(70%) did not know which hospitals provide palliative care. None of the participants received training in palliative care. Majority of participants 98 (98%) were interested in receiving training for palliative care. Conclusions:Though post graduate students knew concept of palliative care, but did not have detailed knowledge including its practical application .