Mind the Gap: Understanding Palliative Care Clinician Attitudes Toward Mental Health Training

Abstract

Background: Palliative care (PC) clinicians provide mental healthcare to individuals with serious illnesses. Despite this, there is limited knowledge regarding their mental health training opportunities. Methods: To identify predictors of satisfaction with mental health training opportunities and assess the relationship between training opportunities and clinician comfort in managing mental health comorbidities, we conducted a secondary analysis of a nationwide survey involving 708 PC clinicians. Results: Satisfaction with mental health training was moderate (M = 2.75/5, SD = .915). Access to lectures/webinars was the most common training opportunity (54%). Significant predictors of satisfaction with training included access to lectures/webinars (β = .328, P <.001) and case discussions (β = .231, P = .007). Academic practice settings and satisfactory mental health referrals were associated with a greater number of different training opportunities. Clinicians in academic settings had higher odds of accessing various training opportunities, such as lectures/webinars (OR = 2.58, P <.001) and longitudinal training pathways (OR = 4.51, P <.001). A moderate, positive correlation was found between training satisfaction and comfort in managing mental health comorbidities (r = .30, P <.001). Discussion: This study is among the first to elucidate factors influencing PC clinicians’ satisfaction with mental health training. Low-resource training opportunities, such as webinars and lectures, significantly predict satisfaction, suggesting the potential of these scalable solutions to enhance training. The findings underscore the importance of expanding evidence-based mental health training for PC clinicians to improve patient care.