Summary of Findings

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Community attitudes toward palliative care 2006 Integrated report

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This section provides a summary of findings from the Community Attitudes towards Palliative Care project, conducted in 2006 by Campbell Research & Consulting for the Palliative Care Section of the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing. The project measured and explored the Australian community’s awareness, understanding and attitudes towards palliative care in Australia.

Palliative care is not a top of mind health issue for Australians. However, the specialty is a topic of which most of the Australians were aware.

Only one percent identified palliative care as a health issue without prompting.
Eight in ten were aware of palliative care at some level, but generally not well enough to be able to explain the concept to someone else.
Awareness of palliative care is typically gained by direct or indirect exposure to palliative care services.

Australians generally do not actively seek information about palliative care.

Doctors and hospitals were identified as primary information sources.
Providers did not perceive doctors and hospitals to be the most reliable sources, as some referring practitioners were seen to have insufficient knowledge of palliative care to be able to effectively inform patients. Palliative care associations were perceived to be more reliable by providers, though were infrequently mentioned by the community.
Younger Australians may look to the Internet for information, but would most likely look for sites about specific diseases, rather than specialised palliative care sites.
On first contact with palliative care services, clients typically require general information about the range of services available and how to access them.

Australians understand palliative care at a very general level, as ‘care for the terminally ill’.Top of Page

Australians indicated that the community needs to know more about palliative care, and should have a basic understanding of the specialty and how to access services before they are required.
Overall there is some knowledge of the broad aims, services, recipients and locations associated with palliative care.
Australians demonstrated a lower level of knowledge of specific aspects of palliative care such as the referral process and cost.
Providers perceive the community’s knowledge to be lower than is actually demonstrated by the community.
Knowledge and awareness of palliative care was higher for older people, and those who have had direct or indirect exposure to palliative care services.
Knowledge and awareness did not differ greatly by state, or for people living in metropolitan or rural locations.

Almost half of Australians have had direct or indirect exposure to palliative care services.

This contact comes mostly from knowing, or knowing of, a person who has received palliative care.
These Australians held the specialty in very high regard, and perceive palliative care to be a very important source of support.
Clients of palliative care services emphasised the quality, compassion and dedication of palliative care staff, reporting very high levels of satisfaction with most aspects of care.

Australians held very positive attitudes towards palliative care.

There was some uncertainty in the community regarding the cost of palliative care.
There was also uncertainty regarding the distinction between palliative care and euthanasia.
As with knowledge of palliative care, providers perceived community attitudes towards palliative care to be lower than those actually reported by the community.

There has been an increase in community awareness and knowledge of palliative care since 2002.

This increase was most likely due to a greater number of Australians having contact with palliative care.
Despite this increase in knowledge, attitudes towards palliative care have shown little change.
There were some reported improvements to the profile and understanding of palliative care among referring providers.

Awareness of National Palliative Care Week is low among the Australian population:

Few Australians were aware of National Palliative Care Week. The most commonly recalled feature of the event was newspaper articles.
While almost all providers were aware of National Palliative Care Week, a substantial proportion did not take part in any activities for the event.

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