Page 21 - Petelin, Ana. 2024. Ed. Zdravje delovno aktivnih in starejših odraslih | Health of the Working-Age and Older Adults. Zbornik prispevkov z recenzijo | Proceedings. Koper: University of Primorska Press

https://doi.org/10.26493/978-961-293-397-5.21-32

Evaluation of Student Knowledge
of Palliative Care

Margareta Begić , Edina Pulić , Tatjana Njegovan - Zvonarević , Želimir Bertić ,
1
1
2
1
Mirjana Telebuh 1
1 University of Applied Health Sciences, Zagreb, Croatia
2 Faculty of Health Studies, University of Rijeka, Croatia
Abstract

Introduction: There has been an increase in the number of patients in
palliative care due to better care for patients suffering from chronic
diseases and cancer. Physiotherapists and occupational therapists
are indispensable members of the palliative care team. The three-
year curriculum at the Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy
Departments at university provides several courses covering basic
knowledge of palliative care. The aim of this study is to establish how
familiar physiotherapy and occupational therapy students are with
palliative care and if they have different levels of knowledge in this area.
The way in which physiotherapy and occupational therapy students gain
additional knowledge of this topic and learn about palliative care will
also be determined. Methods: 136 undergraduate occupational therapy
students and 138 undergraduate physiotherapy students at the University
of Applied Health Sciences in Zagreb participated in this study. All
respondents filled in an online questionnaire about their knowledge of
palliative care, which was created and made accessible on the Google
Forms platform. Results: We expect that the results will provide a clear
idea of the level of knowledge physiotherapy and occupational therapy
students of all three years of study have about palliative care. The results
of this study show similar levels of knowledge in physiotherapy and
occupational therapy students. The presented results indicate a small
difference between the two study groups (PT and OT), but it is not
statistically significant. Discussion and conclusion: Results of this study
could provide new ideas regarding formal and informal training of
healthcare professionals, primarily physiotherapists and occupational
therapists, in order to improve the quality of palliative care resulting in a
higher quality of life of patients in palliative care.

Keywords: students, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, palliative care.