Volume 26, Issue 121, March 2022

Assessment of palliative care knowledge among medical students and factors affecting it: A cross-sectional study, 2021

Maram Alshareef^1♦, Safwan Ahmed Almuwallad², Abdulrahman Abubaker Babkoor², Hussam Abdulaziz Albarakati², Bayan Alsharif³, Mokhtar Mahfouz Shatla^1,4

¹Department of Community Medicine and Pilgrims Health. Faculty of Medicine, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, Saudi Arabia
²Students at Faculty of Medicine, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, Saudi Arabia
³Preventive Medicine department, King Abdullah Medical City, Makkah, Saudi Arabia
⁴Department of Family Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Menoufia University, Menoufia, Egypt

^♦Corresponding author
Department of Community Medicine and Pilgrims Health, Faculty of Medicine, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, Saudi Arabia

ABSTRACT

Background: In Saudi Arabia the number of palliative care PC experts is relatively low, so most PC work is done by doctors who have recently graduated. Moreover, PC is not a mandatory course in medical school but can be taken as an elective. Method: This cross-sectional, web-based survey used a modified questionnaire to measure self-reported PC knowledge. A total of 266 medical students at Umm Alquara University (males: 160, 60.2%) participated. Of the participants, 166 (62.4%) were sixth-year students, 86 (32.3%) were in their internship year, and 14 (5.3%) were one-year post-graduate physicians. Result: Most of the participants (124, 46.6%) reported a self-assessed poor level of PC knowledge. However, interest in the oncology specialty as future career or attending an educational course about PC affected students’ knowledge. Conclusions: Half of the undergraduate medical students expressed an interest in learning about PC which can be part of the curriculum.

Keywords: palliative care, knowledge, undergraduate medical students

Medical Science, 2022, 26, ms82e2057

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.54905/disssi/v26i121/ms82e2057

Published: 26 February 2022