1. Medical students do not feel confident in managing palliative care as future doctors.
- Author
-
Melgaard, S. K. and Neergaard, M. A.
- Subjects
ACADEMIC medical centers ,CLINICAL competence ,CONFIDENCE ,MEDICAL education ,PSYCHOLOGY of medical students ,PALLIATIVE treatment ,QUESTIONNAIRES ,SEX distribution ,STUDENT attitudes ,CROSS-sectional method - Abstract
Introduction: All doctors need to have knowledge of the basic principles of palliative care (PC). Hence, in the past decades, there has been an increased attention to medical students' education in PC. Surprisingly, studies have shown that education in PC at Danish medical schools is below international standards. The aims were to investigate Danish medical students' self-assessed confidence and opinion on PC education as well as explore association with gender, age, and semester. Methods: We performed a cross-sectional study based on an online questionnaire-based survey among medical students at Aarhus University, Denmark. Results: Of approximately 900 students, 250 responded (28%). Generally, participants reported low confidence in managing PC. Lowest confidence was found regarding conversion from oral to subcutaneous administration of medicine, whereas participants felt more confident in communication related to PC. Male respondents reported higher confidence in managing PC than females. Positive opinions on the relevance of PC education and of implementing more PC education were reported. Conclusion: This study showed that improvements of PC education at Danish medical schools are pivotal. Danish medical students did not feel confident in managing PC; female students felt less confident than male students. Furthermore, we found positive opinions towards implementing more PC education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2020
- Full Text
- View/download PDF