Effectiveness of different methods of health education on knowledge and attitude regarding palliative care among college students in urban Puducherry: a pre-post intervention study

Abstract Background The World Health Organization estimates that around 6 million people need palliative care in India but not even 1% of the patients have access to it. Objective To find the prevalence of knowledge on palliative care and compare the effectiveness of different methods of health education on attitude regarding palliative care among urban college students in southern India. Subjects A pre-post intervention study was conducted in three different arts, science and commerce colleges in urban Pondicherry in August 2017. Methods Data regarding attitude change towards palliative care by three different modes of intervention in the three colleges: health talk (Group A), health talk with video (Group B) and health talk and interaction with a patient’s caregiver (Group C) – before and after intervention – were collected using a predesigned pretested structured questionnaire. Results Among the 65, 75 and 67 participants in Groups A, B and C, respectively – the majority belonged to urban nuclear families; the mean age was 19.5 (0.9) years and Group C had only female students. The prevalence of knowledge about palliative care was found to be 9.2%. There was a difference in attitude scores among the three groups (p = 0.02) with Group C having the highest change of a score with a median of 2 (−1,5). Conclusion Awareness about palliative care is very low among non-medical undergraduate college students of urban Pondicherry. The best method of health education in changing the attitude towards palliative care was interaction with patient’s caregiver.