Short- and Long-Term Effects of Workshop-Style Educational Program on Long-Term Care Leaders’ Attitudes toward Facility End-of-Life Care

In 2001, the Japan Geriatric Society released its Position Statement regarding palliative care for the elderly, formulating the following observation on end-of-life care for the elderly: the majority of health care professionals receive insufficient specialized training in the care of terminally-ill patients [1]. There is a particular need for comprehensive and practical instruction in the care of dying patients, including symptom management and communication skills [2,3]. Over the past decade, there has been a growing national awareness in the deficiencies in end-of-life care education for health care professionals. A national study on undergraduate end-of-life care education programs for medical and nursing schools conducted in 2005 revealed that most medical and nursing schools offered palliative care education programs, but that the mean number of teaching hours was too low (7.6 hours in medical schools vs 35.5 hours in nursing schools) to allow for the acquisition of proper skills. In addition, most of such end-of-life care education programs included only a course on end-of-life care for cancer patients, indicating a serious education deficiency in the area of elderly care at end-of-life [2].