Paediatric palliative care: needs assessment for undergraduate medical and nursing education

Paediatric palliative care (PPC) is in its nascent stage despite being an essential component of paediatrics. With its growing importance in healthcare of the 21 st century, the expertise, emotional coping and communication skills of healthcare professionals have been greatly challenged. This situation is partially attributed to shortfalls in undergraduate education. This cross-sectional explorative study reveals the PPC-related knowledge, attitude and educational needs of undergraduate preclinical medical and nursing students in Hong Kong. A from conducted to determine respondents’ towards PPC. and without The test, Fisher’s exact test, were used to analyse the data. PPC education including a range of topics is required and welcomed among students. Both curricula should include fundamental PPC palliative concepts and emotional aspects of young patients and their families. Emotional coping and communication skills should be emphasised in medicine, while pain management and multidisciplinary approaches should be taught in nursing. Since this knowledge benefits not only PPC but also the overall healthcare, we strongly encourage to integrate PPC education into both curricula.