Palliative medicine specialist and general practitioner interactions: national survey

Objectives: The purpose of the study was to investigate the collaboration between primary care and palliative care physicians, which is key to providing comprehensive care, and to identify potential difficulties and needs in referring patients to palliative care. Methods: The study was conducted as an online survey, available to primary care and palliative care physicians. The data collected during the survey were used to compare perceptions of different specialty physicians' perspectives on various aspects regarding palliative care. Results: The results of the study showed significant differences in the assessment of the palliative care services availability (73% of primary care physicians rate it poorly comparing to high rating of 60% by palliative care specialists), as well as disparities between the declarations regarding the criteria used to decide on referral to palliative care (achieving the best quality of life) and the actual referral of patients (primary care physicians are third on the list of specialists referring patients to palliative care). Despite the need for adequate cooperation between family physicians and palliative care physicians, some difficulties were identified, such as primary care physicians' lack of knowledge of the patient palliative care referral criteria, and financial as well as personnel and palliative care facilities' limitations, were identified. Conclusions: The study confirms the need for better cooperation between primary care physicians and palliative care specialists in Poland. It suggests that educating primary care physicians about palliative care referral criteria can improve the patient referrals accuracy.