Palliative Care: accurate information necessary for both the general public and health care providers

The general public and health professionals are waiting for accurate and detailed information on palliative care and more widely on the serious illness , said a summary was published by the Research Centre for the Study and Observation living conditions ( Crédoc ) .
Accompany the end of life of a patient
This paper presents the views of the general population and health professionals not working in a structure on hospice care and support for people in later life . These perceptions were collected between May and July 2003 , with a hundred people being expressed in individual interviews or group sessions, and have been the subject of a report co-authored by the Crédoc and the National Institute for Prevention and health Education ( INPE ) .

Rarely mentioned spontaneously , either by the public or by caregivers, hospice still prove little known , although all agree that their primary objective is to improve the end of life of the patient. They refer to the image of an "alternative medicine " , which is to relieve pain and suffering pain , succeeding the healing phase and lying " between aggressive treatment and euthanasia " can be read in the report.

Among the general public , very few people know the professionals involved in the care of palliative care, and their work is also partly ignored : if the need for training on the psychological aspect is mentioned, no identifies the technical aspects of the occupation.

Accurate, practical and usable
Most healthcare professionals surveyed have meanwhile been unable to mention the structures of palliative care in their area. But even if they do not exercise within a structure of palliative care, " they are likely to make themselves the care or referred to specialized teams ," say Typhaine Mahe , Bruno Maresca and Mary Odile Simon , committee members who conducted the study .

Doctors and nurses are therefore waiting for information , both on the practice of palliative care , in particular the support to which they feel powerless , lack of time and training , and the provision of care existing locally.

The need for "explicit" information and "operational" is also felt for the general public who want to be better prepared to deal with , where applicable, the serious illness of a loved one .

As for the transmission of this information, the wishes of the general population and caregivers meet: the first express the wish " of oral information , targeted and relayed by hospitals and private doctors ," while the latter " want control information (...) , be informed before their patients and the general population ( ... ) and used as privileged actors and relay to the public , " say the authors of the report.

But if this information is required, the professionals interviewed stressed the importance of having sufficient resources to develop the structures first , otherwise all requests can not be met.