Page 29 - 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

groups, the median, rated from 1 to 5, differs across all questions except for “Do
you know what palliative care is?”, where the median was 4 in both groups. In
the other questions, the PT group consistently had a median one point high-
er than the OT group. The lowest mode in both groups was observed for the
question “Can you see yourself as a PT/OT working in palliative care?” (PT=3;
OT=2).
The results of the perceived assessments of the respondents’ acquired pal-
liative care knowledge are described by the median and the standard deviation
and show the minimum and maximum points (Table 11.). The presented results
indicate a small difference between the two study groups (PT and OT), but the
difference is not statistically significant (p=0.1411).

Table 11. Results of perceived assessments of the respondents’ acquired
palliative care knowledge

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Study group Min Max M SD
PT 10 25 17.51 3.69
OT 9 21 15.14 2.21
PT – physiotherapy group; OT – occupational therapy group; Min – minimum; Max – maximum;
M – median; SD – standard deviation

Discussion evaluation of student knowledge of palliative care
Physiotherapy and occupational therapy are based on a holistic approach to pa-
tient care, including palliative care principles. Although the respondents in this
study believe that they know well what palliative care is, they believe that more
palliative care knowledge is necessary for physiotherapists and occupational
therapists, and a smaller number of respondents from the OT group believe
that palliative care should be included as a course in undergraduate studies The
results of our study show that physiotherapy students believe to a greater ex-
tent than occupational therapy students that additional training in their work
is necessary and required to a very large extent ( PT=20.44%, OT=9.56%).
Greater knowledge and additional palliative care training enables pro-
vision of quality care and improvement of practical competencies ( Yie et al.,
2023). Our study is in line with other research that emphasizes the need for
additional knowledge of physiotherapists and occupational therapists in the
field of palliative care, but it is not sufficiently expressed in practice (Fadare et
al., 2014; Pascoe et al., 2018). In this study, a smaller number of OT group re-
spondents can see themselves working in the field of palliative care (PT=19.57%,
OT=5.15%) (Table 9). One of the reasons could be students’ discomfort when
dealing with death and dying, as well as the prevailing health culture that still
views death as a failure (Sadhu et al., 2010). Therefore, physiotherapists and oc-
cupational therapists may be less motivated for working in palliative care be-
cause the results of functional recovery are not as successful as in curative re-
habilitation. The difference in the responses of occupational therapy students