3.9.3 Public awareness of palliative care in New Zealand (120)

Bridie Kent, Director of Clinical Nursing Research, Nursing, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand b.kent@auckland.ac.nz

Abstract:

To date, public awareness aspects of palliative care have received little attention from researchers, particularly in New Zealand, despite the growing demand for such care and support within a society that has a high incidence of cancer, heart disease, renal failure and diabetes (MoH 2001, 2003). A lack of awareness of palliative care services can lead to negative impressions of end of life care and reduce health professionals’ willingness to recommend such care when necessary. It can also lead to low usage of the various palliative care services, lack of patient empowerment and low levels of community involvement or participation in palliative care provision.

This study replicated the descriptive anonymous postal survey undertaken by the Scottish Partnership for Palliative Care (Wallace 2003), and used, for this phase of the study, a randomly selected sample of 402 people living in a major city in the North Island of New Zealand. Sampling was undertaken using the city's electoral role, with every 100th name being included in the survey. Ethics approval for the study was obtained from the University of Auckland Human Participants Ethics Committee.

The survey was carried out April – June 2007. The response rate was 32%. The descriptive and bivariate results generated using SPSS (v14) will be presented to show the similarities and differences that were found when comparisons were made between the public perceptions of palliative care in New Zealand and Scotland.

The findings will inform strategies currently being developed to raise awareness of palliative care services in New Zealand and enhance uptake of services. Furthermore, the comparisons with the Scottish data help to determine the transferability potential of cohesive approaches to palliative and end-of-life care among countries with similar characteristics. It also reflects the international collaboration in research taking place in this field of practice.

Biography:

Associate Professor Bridie Kent I am a clinically focused nurse academic who, for fifteen years specialised in adult critical care nursing, before venturing into academia in 1993. I was awarded a PhD in Nursing in 1999 by the University of Wales. I have extensive experience in health services education and research in the UK and New Zealand, where I am the Director of Clinical Nursing Research and the Centre of Evidence Based Nursing Aotearoa (CEBNA). Current research focuses on implementing evidence based practice in acute and primary care, as well as palliative care and other end of life issues.