A descriptive online survey about the knowledge of palliative care residents of Saudi Arabia has compared to the general worldwide population

OBJECTIVES: To assess communities’ basic knowledge of palliative care by developing a questionnaire. METHODS: This prevalence study, an anonymous online questionnaire, was answered by 326 individuals living throughout Saudi Arabia over one month. The questions concerned the basic principles and knowledge of palliative care. We collected the data between February and May 2019. RESULTS: The results showed that 72% of the respondents had neither heard nor knew about palliative care. Those who know about palliative care assess their knowledge as the following: 17.8% of the respondents reported that they knew the meaning and could explain it to others. As well, 10.5% knew the meaning but could not explain it to others; 9.3% had heard of it but did not know the meaning, and 62.4% had never heard of it. CONCLUSION: The research showed that there is a lack of knowledge about palliative-care among the population of Saudi Arabia. Data shows that there should be more efforts toward providing the community with better knowledge about palliative care.