Knowledge, Attitude and Perception Regarding Palliative Care Among Families of Stroke Patients : A Center Based Survey in Riyadh City of Saudi Arabia.

Background: Palliative care service is a comprehensive and specialized service which can help in improving the quality of life among the sufferer. The success of the palliative care service depends on the shared decision making. The palliative care service not only improves the quality of life of the patient and that of the caregivers but also provide condence among their families who are facing the challenges. It is the comprehensive assessment and treatment of physical, psychological and spiritual symptoms experienced by the patient. According to one estimate 56.8 million people are in need of palliative care service every year .Unfortunately only about 14% of the people who need palliative care currently receive it. Barriers to palliative care have been noted by various researches which include misconception about palliative care, inadequate palliative care education. The present study was conducted to assess the knowledge, attitude and perception of those families members whose relatives suffered stroke and needed palliative care service. Materials and Methods: It was a cross sectional survey conducted at King Fahad Medical city hospital between January 2018 to March 2022. All the family members whose relatives were admitted with stroke during the study periods were the study population. The epi info software(Version 6) was used to calculate the sample size .which was calculated to be 217 families . A pre designed, pre tested questionnaires were distributed via Google form. The questionnaires consisted demographic characteristics of the families , their knowledge regarding the palliative care and their attitude and perception towards the palliative care service. The data were entered and analyzed by using SPSS Version 20.Frequency distribution of basic information and knowledge and perception and attitude was constructed and expressed as numbers and percentages. BI-variate analysis was conducted by using a Chi-squared test to examine the association between variables and to assess the relationship between basic information and knowledge and perception scores. Data were calculated with respective 95 % Condence Interval and was presented as mean . A P value of < 0.05 was considered as statistically signicant. Result: A total of 124 family members participated in this survey .The mean age of the participants was 44 years ±9.13 years .Almost thirty ve percent of the participants were graduate followed by those (33.1%) who were postgraduate, secondary school educated (18.5%) and primary school educated (18.5%). The majority of the participants (65.3%) were married Almost sixty seven percent (66.9%) of the participants belonged to rural area. More than three fourth of the participants (76.6%) were rst degree caregiver kinship while 19.4% were second degree and only 4% were third degree. The majority of the participants (55.6%) did not hear about palliative care. Majority of the participants (73.4%) responded that they were never offered by any of the hospital staffs for palliative care service for their patients. More than sixty one percent of the participants (61.3%) had poor knowledge. Majority of the participants (66.9%) had positive perception towards palliative care. The urban participants ( P=0.076), those with higher education(P=0.013),married (0.045),third degree caregiver (0.032) , caregiver related to medical eld (P=0.009) were having signicantly higher knowledge of palliative care. Similarly The participants from the urban area( 0.00) ,higher educational qualication((0.002) ,married (0.035) ,rst degree care giver (P=0.000) and those who heard about the palliative care service (P=0.019) were having positive attitude and better perception towards palliative care.