Association of Participation in a National Standardized Palliative Care Education Program With Self-Reported Prior...

Palliative care education programs aim to build primary palliative care competencies among clinicians, yet whether participation in such programs is associated with specialist palliative care consultation in routine practice remains poorly characterized. To evaluate the association between participation in the Palliative Care Emphasis Program on Symptom Management and Assessment for Continuous Medical Education (PEACE)-Japan's nationwide standardized palliative care education workshop-and self-reported prior palliative care team (PCT) consultation among hospital staff involved in cancer care. We conducted a single-center, cross-sectional, anonymous staff survey in 2016 at a Japanese tertiary care university hospital. Eligible respondents were physicians, inpatient nurses, and hospital pharmacists involved in cancer care. The primary exposure was self-reported PEACE participation. The primary outcome was self-reported prior PCT consultation. Associations were examined using Fisher's exact test. Of 266 respondents with complete data, 93 (35.0%) reported PEACE participation, and 168 (63.2%) reported prior PCT consultation. All PEACE participants reported prior PCT consultation (93/93, 100.0%) versus 75/173 (43.4%) nonparticipants (p < 0.001). PEACE participants were more often physicians and differed in age distribution from nonparticipants. In this 2016 survey conducted during an early phase of national palliative care education dissemination, PEACE participation was associated with self-reported prior PCT consultation. This finding should be interpreted as a hypothesis-generating educational baseline rather than as causal evidence.