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BMC Palliative Care
Published in: BMC Palliative Care 1/2017

Open Access 01-12-2017 | Research article

Self-confidence and knowledge of German ICU physicians in palliative care – a multicentre prospective study

Authors: Veronika Krautheim, Andrea Schmitz, Gesine Benze, Thomas Standl, Christine Schiessl, Wolfgang Waldeyer, Alexander Hapfelmeier, Eberhard F. Kochs, Gerhard Schneider, Klaus J. Wagner, Christian M. Schulz

Published in: BMC Palliative Care | Issue 1/2017

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Abstract

Background

Little is known about ICU physicians’ self-confidence and knowledge related to palliative care. Our objective was to investigate self-confidence and knowledge of German ICU physicians related to palliative care, and to assess the impact of work experience, gender, specialty and additional certifications in pain or palliative medicine.

Methods

In a multicentre prospective observational study ICU physicians of ten hospitals were asked to rate their self-confidence and to complete a multiple choice questionnaire for the assessment of knowledge. Beyond descriptive statistics and non-parametric tests for group comparisons, linear regression analysis was used to assess the impact of independent variable on self-confidence and knowledge. Spearman‘s rank test was calculated.

Results

55% of answers in the knowledge test were correct and more than half of the participants rated themselves as “rather confident” or “confident”. Linear regression analysis revealed that an additional certificate in either pain or palliative medicine significantly increased both knowledge and self-confidence, but only 15 out of 137 participants had at least one of those certificates. Relation between self-confidence and the results of the knowledge test was weak (r = 0.270 in female) and very weak (r = −0.007 in male).

Conclusions

Although the questionnaire needs improvement according to the item analysis, it appears that, with respect to palliative care, ICU Physicians’ self-confidence is not related to their knowledge. An additional certificate in either pain or palliative medicine was positively correlated to both self-confidence and knowledge. However, only a minority of the participants were qualified through such a certificate.
Appendix
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Footnotes
1
(Prof. Dr. Friedemann Nauck, Past-President of the German Society of Palliative Medicine; Prof. Dr. med. Bernd Alt-Epping and Prof. Dr. Boris Zernikow, members of the Editorial board of the Zeitschrift für Palliativmedizin; Dr. Julia Wager, Centre of Pediatric Pain Therapy, University of Witten/Herdicke, and the following authors of this study KW, WW, VK)
 
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Metadata
Title
Self-confidence and knowledge of German ICU physicians in palliative care – a multicentre prospective study
Authors
Veronika Krautheim
Andrea Schmitz
Gesine Benze
Thomas Standl
Christine Schiessl
Wolfgang Waldeyer
Alexander Hapfelmeier
Eberhard F. Kochs
Gerhard Schneider
Klaus J. Wagner
Christian M. Schulz
Publication date
01-12-2017
Publisher
BioMed Central
Published in
BMC Palliative Care / Issue 1/2017
Electronic ISSN: 1472-684X
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12904-017-0244-6

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