Előadás és poszterek az EAPC 14. Kongresszusán
Koppenhága, 2015. május 8 - 10.
Abstract book - EAPC 2015 (pdf)
Common beliefs and reality about hospice and palliative care
Dr. Katalin Hegedus
Background: I started to collect the common beliefs about hospice and palliative care four years ago, based on my 20-year palliative care experiences.
Aim: If we learn more about the ‘nature’ of common beliefs, we can easier bust them.
Methods: (1) Comprehensive literature searches with advances keywords were completed through an online search of PsychINFO, Ovid, MEDLINE, Help the Hospices databases for articles published between 1980 and 2014. (2) PC specialists from 6 countries were asked to collect the common beliefs in their countries. ‘Common’ meant also professionals and lay people. Countries were selected from Western, Eastern, Northern and South Europe (Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Serbia and UK).
Results: Based on worldwide literature and own research, most of common beliefs are very similar in almost every countries e.g. ‘there is no difference between palliative care and long-term care’, ‘palliative care means that medically nothing will be done for you anymore’, ’taking morphine: death is approaching’, ’palliative care is not far from euthanasia’. Surprisingly in countries with different cultural, religious and political background people believe the same – and not only lay people but specialists too. Only a part of the difficulty with misperceptions appears to be related to confusion of commonly used terminology (Devon et al, 2012). The explication that still now – despite our efforts – death and dying are taboo subjects in societies and people don’t want to discuss and/or understand them. The conventional education methods are not efficient.
Conclusion: Beliefs about hospice and palliative care are based on death and dying as taboo subjects, and result in incomplete or inaccurate information. Efficient education model with discussing good death and dying is a common essential.