US and Russian physician perspectives regarding end of life care

Gerald J Jogerst*, James G Jackson, Yulia Matveeva, Yinghui Xu, and Anna Turusheva

Purpose: To compare US and Russian primary care physicians’ attitudes, comfort and experiences providing palliative care.

Design: Cross sectional survey.

Settings: Iowa, USA and Leningrad Oblast, Russia

Participants: Family medicine physicians at University of Iowa and Northwestern State Medical University, St Petersburg, Russia, community practicing family physicians.

Methods: Chi-squared testing for dichotomous variables and t-tests for mean scores.

Results: Sixty-six US and 81 Russian physicians completed the survey. More US physicians preferred the home setting for care (83% vs 56%) p<.001 and Russian physicians community hospice (47% vs 18%) p<.001 weeks to months before patient’s death. Ninety-four percent of US physicians reported that patients should make end of life decisions, 57% of Russian sample reported that family physicians should make those decisions p<.001. Patient should be informed (US vs Russia) of terminal illness Always (74% vs 31%) p<.001 and If Asked (9% vs 64%) p<.001. US physicians reported higher comfort rates with managing symptoms except for pain management (88% vs 100%) p=0.001. Drug prescribing comfort favored US physicians. In the last 6 months Russian physicians made more home visits “Often or Always” 73% vs 6%, p<.001 and US physicians disclosed poor prognosis “Often or Always” 83% vs 56%, p<.001 and were more satisfied with provided care “Often or Always” 63% vs 36%, p=0.002.

Conclusions: US sample was more concerned with patient autonomy and had more comfort and satisfaction in providing end of life care.

Keywords:

Published on: Apr 6, 2020 Pages: 2-6

Full Text PDF Full Text HTML DOI: 10.17352/aggr.000014
CrossMark Publons Harvard Library HOLLIS Search IT Semantic Scholar Get Citation Base Search Scilit OAI-PMH ResearchGate Academic Microsoft GrowKudos Universite de Paris UW Libraries SJSU King Library SJSU King Library NUS Library McGill DET KGL BIBLiOTEK JCU Discovery Universidad De Lima WorldCat VU on WorldCat