Implementing Palliative Care Training in the Caribbean: Development and Assessment of a Basic Palliative Care Training Course in Jamaica

Abstract Context The majority of people in need of palliative care (PC) in low- and middle-income countries lack access to it and suffer unnecessarily as a consequence. This unmet need is due, in part, to the lack of trained PC providers. Objectives This study aims to assess the effects of regional training in PC for doctors, nurses, and pharmacists in the Caribbean through assessment of participant satisfaction, anticipated course impact on participants’ clinical practice, barriers to changing practice, and perceived course impact on achievement of key PC milestones. Methods We created and taught a course in basic PC for clinicians from the Caribbean region and collected and analyzed postcourse quantitative and qualitative data on satisfaction and expected impact. Results Eighty-three clinicians from five Caribbean countries participated in this workshop. Thirty participants completed the post-course survey. One hundred percent of these participants ranked the quality of the course as “very high quality” or “high quality.” The majority of participants anticipated changing their practice as a result of this course. Several barriers were reported, including lack of formal PC training in participants’ home countries. Results of participants’ retrospective pre- and postcourse self-assessment for achievement of key PC milestones showed a statistically significant mean increase of at least one point on the seven-point Likert scale for each milestone. Conclusion Overall satisfaction with the course was high, and self-assessed competency in PC improved. These data suggest that an intensive training over several days is an effective format for increasing providers’ perceived efficacy in delivering PC.