Community Attitudes Towards Palliative Care – Summary Report — August 2006

3.1 Awareness

Up to Publications

prev page| TOC |next page

3.1.1 Community

Palliative care is not a top of mind issue for Australians. Without any prompting, only one in one-hundred Australians mentioned palliative care, or care for the terminally ill as an important health issue in Australia. However, areas related to palliative care such as concern over the ageing population, or care for certain groups such as cancer patients were mentioned by a small minority of Australians.

Over eight in ten Australians were aware of palliative care. Of those aware, most have only limited knowledge, with only four in ten reporting sufficient knowledge to be able to explain palliative care to someone else.

Figure 1: Awareness of palliative care

Q3: Have you heard of palliative care?
Q4: And how would you describe your level of knowledge about palliative care?



Base: All respondents (n = 1,201)

Results

Not aware, 16%
Only heard the words, 13%
Know a little bit, 33%
Could explain to others, 38%
Total aware, 84%.

While eight in ten Australians were aware of palliative care, few have a detailed knowledge of the profession. Palliative care is not a top of mind issue for Australians.

Awareness was higher for:

• Females compared with males;
• Older Australians compared with younger Australians; and
• Those working in the health industry compared with those who do not.

"Most people have some awareness and that is fine. But as you grow older, it tends to affect you more."

"By nature, we generally find out or get a deeper understanding when it affects us personally"

Awareness was also very slightly higher for people in regional areas compared with remote areas (but similar to Australians in metropolitan areas).

Awareness is typically gained through personal experience with palliative care (50%). Few Australians became aware of palliative care via other means such as the media (18%).Top of page

3.1.2 Clients

Clients had moderate knowledge of palliative care on first contact with the profession (Figure 2). On first contact, two in three clients knew what palliative care was or knew little bit about it. One in five had only heard the term did not really know what it meant. Only one in five understood palliative well enough to describe it to someone else. The small remainder had never heard of palliative care.

Figure 2: Level of knowledge about palliative care

Q7. How would you describe your level of knowledge about palliative care when you FIRST started thinking about services and support?


Base: All clients (n = 52)

Results

19% knew what palliative care was and could describe it
44% knew a little bit about palliative care
Total of 63% had known about palliative care
23% heard the term , but didn't know what it means
14% never heard of palliative care.

"I only had a very general idea of palliative care, it is not about cure, but letting people die the way they wanted to."

As with the general community, clients had only a very general knowledge about palliative care on first contact with services.
Top of page

prev page| TOC |next page