Perceptions of Palliative Care: Demographics and Health Status Among the General Population in Florida and the United States

Abstract

Background

Palliative care (PC) helps maintain quality of life for seriously ill patients, yet, many Americans lack knowledge of PC.

Aim

To explore the relationships between knowledge of PC of individuals living in north-central Florida and throughout the United States.

Design

This cross-sectional survey with three sampling approaches, one was a community-engaged sample and two were panel respondent samples. Respondents and setting: Respondents of the Florida sample (n₁ = 329) and the community-engaged sample (n₂ = 100), were representative of the 23 Florida county general population. Respondents of the national sample (n = 1800) were adult members of a panel owned by a cloud-based survey platform.

Results

Young adults compared with adults (OR 1.62, 95% CI 1.14-2.28, P .007), middle-adults (OR 2.47, 95% CI 1.58-3.92, P < .001) and older-adults (OR 3.75, 95% CI 2.50-5.67, P < .001) were less likely to agree that the goal of PC is to help friends and family cope with a patient’s illness, and that the goal of PC is to manage pain and other physical symptoms compared with adults (OR 1.67, 95% CI 1.20-2.30, P .002) middle-adults (OR 2.58, 95% CI 1.71-3.95, P < .001) and older-adults (OR 7.19, 95% CI 4.68-11.2, P < .001). Participants with greater rural identity (OR 1.39, 95% CI 1.31-1.48, P < .001) were more likely to agree that accepting PC means giving up.

Conclusions

Increased knowledge of PC might be influenced through targeting educational interventions and educating the general population through social media use.