Objective: To examine the prevalence of palliative care awareness, misconceptions, and receptivity among the general population.
Methods: A descriptive cross sectional study was conducted through an electronic questionnaire among people of age groups from 18 years and above who live in Makkah, Saudi Arabia.
Results: The study included 452 participants. Almost half of them (43.1%) were aged between 18 and 34 years and females represented 74.8% of them. Ever heard about palliative care was reported by 29.4% of the participants; the main reported sources of information about palliative care were friends/relatives (42.8%) and social media (40.6%). Overall, 22.3% of them expressed an excellent level of knowledge while 63.3% had a poor level of knowledge about palliative care. Participants with a personal/family history of receiving palliative care were more likely than their counterparts to express excellent level of knowledge about palliative care (50% vs. 20.9%), p = 0.005.
Conclusion: Most of the general adult population in Makkah expressed poor knowledge about palliative care and the majority of them were unaware of the availability of palliative care services in Makkah.
Key words: Keywords: Palliative care, Knowledge, general population, Saudi Arabia
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