Attitude towards palliative care of family members among elderly chronic diseases patientsand its influencing factors

Objective To explore the cognition and attitude towards palliative care of family members among elderly chronic diseases patients and to analyze its influencing factors. Methods From October 2017 to April 2018, we selected 180 family members of elderly chronic diseases patients at Peking Union Medical College Hospital as subjects by convenience sampling. All of them were investigated with the self-designed cognition and attitude towards palliative care questionnaire. The simple correlation was used to analyze the influencing factors of cognition and attitude towards palliative care of family members among elderly chronic diseases patients. Results A total of 166 valid questionnaires were collected. There were 85 (51.2%) family members of elderly chronic diseases patients understanding palliative care, 133 (80.1%) of them agreeing with implementing palliative care. The reasons of supporting palliative care included that relieving the pain on the deathbed, patients had the right to choose, long-term torment of disease. There were statistical differences in the cognition and attitude towards palliative care among family members with different ages, education levels, occupations, incomes and patients' ages. Conclusions Family members of elderly chronic diseases patients have insufficient understanding of palliative care with a high approval rate. The higher the approval rates, education levels and ages of family members are, they agree more with palliative care. Key words: Aged; Chronic disease; Family; Palliative care