Abstract
Every year, there are over 40000 deaths in Hong Kong, affecting over 240000 individuals in the illness process and bereavement. Current end-of-life care (EoLC), which is mainly provided by health care settings, will fall short in meeting the growing demand. The World Health Assembly urged for international actions in strengthening interfaces between heath care and social care settings. The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust initiated an EoLC project in response to the emerging needs, with this survey to understand the needs of the community.
A randomly drawn sample of household was invited to join telephone survey, and 1600 (62%) completed the study. The findings have four key points. Firstly, public knowledge of EoLC concept is limited. Only around 30% of participants ever heard of palliative care and EoLC. Advance directives were known to 13.4%. Secondly, EoLC is considered as a multi-dimensional care. Psychosocial care (30.4%) and spiritual care (14.7%) were the first and second commonest content perceived by the participants. Thirdly, the location of EoLC provision is not restricted to hospitals (86.4%) but also social service centers (72.9%), residential homes (72.1%) and home (54.6%). Lastly, the primary wish in the last six months of life is found to be family-related. Nearly one in five responded that having good memories with family and friends was their first wish.
The findings suggest expansion of current care in time, content, location and unit of care. Public education, bio-psycho-social-spiritual model, hospital-community partnership and family-centered care are all the possible future directions.