Education on palliative care for Parkinson patients: development of the "Best care for people with late-stage Parkinson's disease" curriculum toolkit.

Dimitrios Gatsios, Angelo Antonini, Giovanni Gentile, Spyridon Konitsiotis, Dimitrios Fotiadis, Irini Nixina, Pille Taba, Christiane Weck, Stefan Lorenzl, Katharina Maria Lex, Piret Paal

Journal: BMC medical education 2021;21(1):538

PMID: 34696752

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Abstract

BACKGROUND

Palliative care education among all stakeholders involved in the care of patients with late-stage Parkinson's disease is not adequate. In fact, there are many unmet educational and training needs as confirmed with a targeted, narrative literature review.

METHODS

To address these needs we have developed the "Best Care for People with Late-Stage Parkinson's Disease" curriculum toolkit. The toolkit is based on recommendations and guidelines for training clinicians and other healthcare professionals involved in palliative care, educational material developed in recent research efforts for patients and caregivers with PD and consensus meetings of leading experts in the field. The final version of the proposed toolkit was drafted after an evaluation by external experts with an online survey, the feedback of which was statistically analysed with the chi-square test of independence to assess experts' views on the relevance and importance of the topics. A sentiment analysis was also done to complement statistics and assess the experts positive and negative sentiments for the curriculum topics based on their free text feedback.

RESULTS

The toolkit is compliant with Kern's foundational framework for curriculum development, recently adapted to online learning. The statistical analysis of the online survey, aiming at toolkit evaluation from external experts (27 in total), confirms that all but one (nutrition in advanced Parkinson's disease) topics included, as well as their objectives and content, are highly relevant and useful.

CONCLUSIONS

In this paper, the methods for the development of the toolkit, its stepwise evolution, as well as the toolkit implementation as a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), are presented. The "Best Care for People with Late-Stage Parkinson' s disease" curriculum toolkit can provide high-quality and equitable education, delivered by an interdisciplinary team of educators. The toolkit can improve communication about palliative care in neurological conditions at international and multidisciplinary level. It can also offer continuing medical education for healthcare providers.

Address: Department of Neurology, Medical School, University of Ioannina, GR-45110, Ioannina, Greece. [email protected].; Unit of Medical Technology and Intelligent Information Systems, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece. [email protected].; Parkinson and Movement Disorders Unit, Study Center for Neurodegeneration, Department of Neuroscience, University of Padua, Padua, Italy.; Department of Neurology, Medical School, University of Ioannina, GR-45110, Ioannina, Greece.; Unit of Medical Technology and Intelligent Information Systems, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece.; Department of Biomedical Research, Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas, Ioannina, Greece.; Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Institute of Clinical Medicine|, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia.; Clinic of Neurology, Tartu University Hospital, Tartu, Estonia.; University Hospital Agatharied, Hausham, Germany.; Palliative Care Research Hub, WHO Collaborating Centre at the Institute of Nursing Science and Practice, Paracelsus Medical University in Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria.

DOI: 10.1186/s12909-021-02964-6

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https://medlineplus.gov/parkinsonsdisease.html

MeSH Terms: Curriculum, Education, Distance, Health Personnel, Humans, Palliative Care, Parkinson Disease