End of life care in GP offices in Czech Republic

Pavel Demo, Tereza Pacíková

Keywords: End-of-life care, general practitioner

Background:

Approximately 80% of patients in the Czech Republic wish to die in their bed at their own home: 20% of them are fortunate in this sense.
The general practitioner's (GPs) position is exceptional within the health care system: long-term interaction with the patient, knowledge orientation in his value system and medical competence and physician empathy play essential roles in this important front-line contact. It can also be generally assumed that outstanding end-of-life care may prevent possible trauma for the patient and his relatives.

Research questions:

To identify the needs of GPs in the filed of end-of-life care and how to fulfill them.

Method:

We used simple questionnaire in electronic form based on semi-structured interviews.

Results:

The proposed project consists of two complementary parts.
The first important goal was to collect sufficiently detailed information on the basic needs of practitioners operating also in the field of end-of-life care in the Czech Republic. It was realized by applying a relatively simple questionnaire in electronic form. Consequently, it is necessary to prepare a specific Curriculum for GPs to upgrade their competence in this field. Additionally, the newly-prepared web pages with specific and useful information for GPs (including, for example, instructions in optimization in end-of-life care activities) seem highly useful for the near future.
The second part of the project is oriented more practically: to seek motivated practitioners – expected regional leaders in end-of-life care (including their two years of support). This effort aims to build up a functional net covering, ideally, the whole Czech Republic.

Conclusions:

Currently we only have preliminary results. Final results will be available by the time of the EGPRN meeting.

Points for discussion:

What is essential in end-of-life care in our surgeries?

Is this theme interesting for you?

Do you have any experience in this field?

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