Abstract

Background: Palliative care (PC) aims to affirm life while regarding dying as a normal process, to provide support to enable patients to live as actively as possible until death, and to offer support to the family during the patient's illness and in their bereavement. It is an emerging medical specialty, but PC awareness varies widely according to international research to date.
Methodology: We conducted an observational descriptive cross-sectional study at King Abdulaziz Medical City. The data included in the study was obtained from a paper-based questionnaire that will determine the knowledge and awareness regarding PC, the attitude toward PC, and experience toward PC. The statistical package for social sciences (version 26) was used to analyze the data. Permission and approval for conducting this research are obtained from the ethical committee at King Abdullah International Medical Research Center and Institutional Review Board.
Results: We included 262 participants who fit our inclusion criteria 81% of the respondents of our study said they have heard about PC. When asked about the aim of PC, 92.4% said PC is for patients' comfort.
Conclusion: Knowledge and awareness of PC among the medical student and healthcare worker in Saudi Arabia is relatively high compared to the general population but will need more media involvement and increase the PC-related topic in the curriculum for healthcare specialties.

Key words: Palliative care, palliative treatment, palliative therapy, palliative medicine, hospice care, comfort care