The Changes of Confidence, Accuracy and Knowledge of Medical Professionals after the Education for Survival Prediction in Terminally Ill Cancer Patients

Purpose: In this study, we evaluated the effects of training for survival prediction of terminally ill patients in terms of medical professionals’ confidence, accuracy and knowledge of survival prediction. Methods: Twenty-nine participants completed a self-administered questionnaire where they scored their confidence, accuracy and knowledge of survival prediction before and after the training session. T he training was provided in July 2009 at a university hospital located in Gyeonggi province, Republic of Korea. The p articipants were instructed by a professor of family medicine specialized in hospice palliative medicine to predict survival of a case using the palliative prognostic score and objective prognostic score. The training was provided in th e form of a PowerPoint presentation for 40 minutes. Results: Participants’ confidence in survival prediction significantly increased from 4.00±1.73 (mean±SD) (0∼10, visual analogue scale) to 5.83±1.71 after the training (P0.001). Before training, participant ’s level of confidence significantly correlated with their age (P=0.04). The training significantly improved the correlation between the confidence level and the number of terminal cancer patients who m they have experienced (P=0.005 before training, P=0.017 after training). Participant ’s accuracy in survival prediction also significantly improved from 14 of 29 (48%) to 27 of 29 (93.1%) (P 0.001). The change in knowledge of survival prediction was too small to be statistically analyzed. Conclusion: After training, the confidence and accuracy scores significant ly improved. Further study with a greater number of participants is needed to generalize this finding. (Korean J Hosp Palliat Care 2012;15:155-161)Key Words: Prognosis, Education, Attitude