Community-Academic Partnership: Intervention to Prepare Community Members for the End-of-Life Journey

Area of Science:

• Community Health
• Gerontology
• Public Health

Background:

• Rural Appalachians express a preference for end-of-life care at home.
• Limited access to and knowledge of palliative and end-of-life care services exist within this population.
• A community-academic partnership was established to address these disparities.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the feasibility and cultural acceptability of a co-developed training intervention.
• To increase community members' knowledge of palliative and end-of-life care resources.
• To address end-of-life care needs in the East Tennessee Appalachian community.

Main Methods:

• Community-based participatory research design and culture care theory were utilized.
• A train-the-trainer workshop and materials were co-developed with community input.
• A retrospective pretest-posttest survey and content analysis of qualitative data were employed.

Main Results:

• The training intervention was found to be feasible and culturally acceptable, with high ratings.
• Participant knowledge regarding palliative and end-of-life care resources significantly improved post-training (P <.001).
• Qualitative feedback was positive, supporting the intervention's effectiveness.

Conclusions:

• The training intervention is an effective strategy for enhancing palliative and end-of-life care knowledge in East Tennessee Appalachian individuals.
• Community member collaboration is crucial for the cultural acceptability and feasibility of health interventions.
• Addressing knowledge gaps can improve access to preferred end-of-life care options.