The Image of Palliative Care among the General Population. Development, Testing and Application of a Scientific Sensible Measuring Instrument

Introduction: To use palliative care (PC) in a sensible way it's necessary that one is well informed and one has a right image of PC. Research shows that this often doesn't seem to be the case. This project study developed an instrument that can examine how the image of PC is correct. The first aim of the project was to measure the views of professionals and those of non-professionals. The second aim of the project was to realize a first application of the instrument within one big group of respondents. This application took place within all first year nursing students of the colleges within the Catholic University of Leuven-association. Methods: First of all, we developed well fitted and content valid items through the interviewing of palliative caregivers, non-palliative caregivers, potential users of PC and relatives. We interviewed until we reached a point of saturation. After the review of the items by 7 palliative care content experts and 2 language experts, we studied the validity and reliability of the items via a Q-sort procedure and a testretestprocedure. After this we completed the items. Finally, a big survey among a group of first year nursing students took place. Results: In total we held 7 focusgroupinterviews and 8 individual interviews. The result of the project is a measuring instrument with 35 items which can be used to examine the image of PC. Within these 35 items there are 15 items that examine the opinion of potential respondents and the other 20 items gauge the level of knowledge concerning the Flemish palliative care provisions. Conclusion: We developed a measuring instrument that can be used in different ways for example within descriptive studies(what does a particular part of the population think about PC) and within the evaluation of information interventions( in which way and on which points did a situation improve).status: publishe