1615P - Investigation of status of lung cancer palliative care management and concept and practice in Chinese medical providers

Background

This study aimed to investigate the current situation of lung cancer palliative care and the awareness of related issues among Chinese medical providers.

Methods

Doctors, nurses, pharmacists were investigated using an electronic questionnaire from January 14 to March 1,2022. The questionnaire addressed the current situation of lung cancer palliative care, most common accompanying symptoms in patients with lung cancer, the incidence of lung cancer-refractory cancer pain, the assessment of treatment satisfaction, usage of patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) drugs.

Results

Questionnaires from 2093 medical provides were collected from 706 hospitals in 28 provincial administrative units. 84.2% p of physicians believed that antitumor therapy and palliative care are equally important, while less than 50% of lung cancer patients received palliative care in most hospitals. The main obstacle affecting the palliative care of lung cancer patients is that patients and their families have concerns about the safety of long-term use of palliative care related drugs. Pain is the most common concomitant symptom of lung cancer. There were statistically significant differences in the proportion of obstacles to the treatment of cancer pain by PCA in different levels of hospitals (goodness-of-fit test result was: χ²=620.022，P＜0.001). The top three ranking of response rate and penetration rate of secondary and tertiary hospitals were: worry about adverse reactions of drug overdose, worry about opioid addiction and increase the economic burden of patients. There is a serious lack of training for Chinese medical providers in terms of the timing of palliative care initiation, pain relief for refractory cancer pain by PCA, and basic understanding of symptom management.

Conclusions

The proportion of patients who were satisfied with the effect of palliative care is low. The medical staff have insufficient awareness of this. There was an urgent need to develop a consensus and standardize lung cancer palliative care and symptoms management in China.

Clinical trial identification

Editorial acknowledgement

Legal entity responsible for the study

The authors.

Funding

Has not received any funding.

Disclosure

All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.