{"title":"Attitudes toward palliative care among cancer patients: a multi-method study.","authors":"Meiying Zhang, Yuxia Zhao, Yifu Lu, Mengyun Peng","doi":"10.3389/fpubh.2025.1511697","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Palliative care plays a crucial role in improving the quality of life for cancer patients, particularly those in advanced stages of the disease. Despite its proven benefits, attitudes toward palliative care vary widely among patients due to cultural beliefs, personal values, and awareness of available services. Understanding cancer patients' perspectives on palliative care is essential for enhancing end-of-life care strategies and ensuring that interventions align with their preferences. However, limited research has explored patients' attitudes toward palliative care in China, highlighting the need for further investigation.</p><p><strong>Objectives: </strong>To explore the current status of cancer patients' palliative care attitudes, identify subgroups of attitudes and examine influencing factors for different subgroups; and understand the cancer patients' perceptions of palliative care.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>A multi-method design was used. 541 cancer patients participated from March to June 2024. A latent profile analysis (LPA) was conducted to identify subgroups. The differences between the variables including sociodemographic characteristics and subgroups were explored, and participants also responded to open-ended questions about what perceptions on palliative care, and content analysis identified themes most frequently reported.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Palliative care attitudes among cancer patients were low. Four different subgroups of palliative care attitudes and three themes about perspectives were confirmed. Education status, occupational status, primary caregivers, type of insurance, cancer stage, anxiety, and level of palliative care knowledge were significant factors affecting different groups (<i>p</i> < 0.05).</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>Majority of cancer patients had poor attitudes toward palliative care, confirming the major factors and perspectives of palliative care. These results emphasize the importance that should be given to the dissemination of knowledge and education about palliative care for cancer patients, and to improve the acceptance and recognition in order to promote palliative care practice.</p>","PeriodicalId":12548,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Public Health","volume":"13 ","pages":"1511697"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4000,"publicationDate":"2025-03-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11920124/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Frontiers in Public Health","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2025.1511697","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2025/1/1 0:00:00","PubModel":"eCollection","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"PUBLIC, ENVIRONMENTAL & OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH","Score":null,"Total":0}
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Abstract
Background: Palliative care plays a crucial role in improving the quality of life for cancer patients, particularly those in advanced stages of the disease. Despite its proven benefits, attitudes toward palliative care vary widely among patients due to cultural beliefs, personal values, and awareness of available services. Understanding cancer patients' perspectives on palliative care is essential for enhancing end-of-life care strategies and ensuring that interventions align with their preferences. However, limited research has explored patients' attitudes toward palliative care in China, highlighting the need for further investigation.
Objectives: To explore the current status of cancer patients' palliative care attitudes, identify subgroups of attitudes and examine influencing factors for different subgroups; and understand the cancer patients' perceptions of palliative care.
Methods: A multi-method design was used. 541 cancer patients participated from March to June 2024. A latent profile analysis (LPA) was conducted to identify subgroups. The differences between the variables including sociodemographic characteristics and subgroups were explored, and participants also responded to open-ended questions about what perceptions on palliative care, and content analysis identified themes most frequently reported.
Results: Palliative care attitudes among cancer patients were low. Four different subgroups of palliative care attitudes and three themes about perspectives were confirmed. Education status, occupational status, primary caregivers, type of insurance, cancer stage, anxiety, and level of palliative care knowledge were significant factors affecting different groups (p < 0.05).
Conclusion: Majority of cancer patients had poor attitudes toward palliative care, confirming the major factors and perspectives of palliative care. These results emphasize the importance that should be given to the dissemination of knowledge and education about palliative care for cancer patients, and to improve the acceptance and recognition in order to promote palliative care practice.
期刊介绍：
Frontiers in Public Health is a multidisciplinary open-access journal which publishes rigorously peer-reviewed research and is at the forefront of disseminating and communicating scientific knowledge and impactful discoveries to researchers, academics, clinicians, policy makers and the public worldwide. The journal aims at overcoming current fragmentation in research and publication, promoting consistency in pursuing relevant scientific themes, and supporting finding dissemination and translation into practice.
Frontiers in Public Health is organized into Specialty Sections that cover different areas of research in the field. Please refer to the author guidelines for details on article types and the submission process.
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