Korean J Hosp Palliat Care.
2012 Sep;15(3):155-161.
The Changes of Confidence, Accuracy and Knowledge of Medical Professionals after the Education for Survival Predictionin Terminally Ill Cancer Patients
- Affiliations
-
- 1Department of Family Medicine, Dongguk University Ilsan Hospital, Goyang, Korea. lisasuhmd@hotmail.com
- 2Department of Medicine, Dongguk University, Seoul, Korea.
- 3Department of Family Medicine, Dongguk University Gyeongju Hospital, Gyeongju, Korea.
- 4Department of Statistics, Dongguk University, Seoul, Korea.
- 5Department of Palliative Medicine, Seoul St. Mary's Hospital, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Korea.
Abstract
- PURPOSE
In this study, we evaluated the effects of training for survival prediction of terminally ill patients in terms of medical professionals' confidence, accuracy and knowledge of survival prediction.
METHODS
Twenty-nine participants completed a self-administered questionnaire where they scored their confidence, accuracy and knowledge of survival prediction before and after the training session. The training was provided in July 2009 at a university hospital located in Gyeonggi province, Republic of Korea. The participants were instructed by a professor of family medicine specialized in hospice palliative medicine to predict survival of a case using the palliative prognostic score and objective prognostic score. The training was provided in the form of a PowerPoint presentation for 40 minutes.
RESULTS
Participants' confidence in survival prediction significantly increased from 4.00+/-1.73 (mean+/-SD) (0~10, visual analogue scale) to 5.83+/-1.71 after the training (P<0.001). Before training, participant's level of confidence significantly correlated with their age (P=0.04). The training significantly improved the correlation between the confidence level and the number of terminal cancer patients whom they have experienced (P=0.005 before training, P=0.017 after training). Participant's accuracy in survival prediction also significantly improved from 14 of 29 (48%) to 27 of 29 (93.1%) (P<0.001). The change in knowledge of survival prediction was too small to be statistically analyzed.
CONCLUSION
After training, the confidence and accuracy scores significantly improved. Further study with a greater number of participants is needed to generalize this finding.