Palliative Care: not just at the end of life

Men living with prostate cancer and their family caregivers often have unmet supportive and palliative care needs. Many people think of palliative care as something only for the last days of life and therefore miss out on much needed support.

This module is a patient-informed palliative care education resource designed for health care professionals. It evaluates the quantitative and qualitative data collected from a UK-wide survey, which sought to identify the sources of information that prostate cancer patients currently access, and their unmet supportive and palliative care and informational needs. 

Using this survey data of patient and family caregiver experience, it discusses how to identify, assess and manage these unmet palliative care needs. 

Following completion of this module, you should understand:

• The scope of palliative care for people living with prostate cancer, and how to explain this to a patient and their family.
• Needs assessment and communication.
• Symptoms and side-effects
  • Physical
  • Psycho-emotional
  • Spiritual
• Planning for the future
• Patient resources

When taking this module think about your own experience of discussing palliative care with your patients and then reflect on this after you've completed the module. 

Authors

• Professor Miriam Johnson, Professor of Palliative Medicine, Hull York Medical School, University of Hull
• Dr Maureen Twiddy, Senior Lecturer in Mixed Methods Research, Hull York Medical School, University of Hull
• Dr Hong Chen, Research Fellow, Hull York Medical School, University of Hull
• Dr Lesley Jones, Honorary Senior Lecturer, Hull York Medical School, University of Hull