Public awareness and knowledge of palliative care in Jordan

Abstract

Background: Public perceptions of palliative care (PC) are crucial to enhance access to PC services and foster a sense of control over health decisions for people at the end of life. Purpose: To assess public knowledge of PC in Jordan. Method: A descriptive cross-sectional design with a stratified self-administered sample of 430 Jordanian citizens from all sectors in Jordan was used. Participants filled out the Palliative Care Knowledge Scale questionnaire. Data were analysed using IBM Statistical Package for the Social Sciences Statistics; descriptive, t-test, analysis of variance and regression test. Results: The mean score on the 13-item Palliative Care Knowledge Scale was 3.51±4.71 (out of 13). This indicates a low level of knowledge about PC among participants; 78.6% (n=338) of the participants had not heard about PC. Participants who worked in health fields, had post-graduate degrees and a high income showed higher awareness of PC than others in the study. Most participants learnt about PC from family members. Conclusion: There is a lack of knowledge of palliative care in Jordanian public society. There is a crucial need to raise public awareness, and implement educational interventions to improve public awareness about palliative care.