Palliative care goes school

The Department of Social Work and Health of the FHV accompanies and evaluates the project "Palliative Care goes school" scientifically. Currently, the questionnaires and results of participant observation are being evaluated.

Palliative Care goes school is an initiative that aims to familiarize around 500 students from 50 middle and high schools in Vorarlberg with the topics of dying and death and the many possibilities of palliative care. An interprofessional team from the Hohenems palliative care unit visited schools for this purpose, raising awareness of palliative topics such as mourning, dealing with illness, dying and death. Also on the agenda of the workshops were the support of family members and the discussion of ethical issues, such as questions surrounding assisted suicide.

Values queried

This exciting and important project is scientifically accompanied by the Department of Social Work and Health of the FHV. At the beginning of the project and the training units the participating Schüler:innen received a questionnaire with questions to their personal attitudes and value conceptions regarding palliative topics. This was followed by a content-related training session by the palliative team. During participant observation by the FHV researchers, the interaction between the palliative team lecturers and the students was recorded and evaluated.

Evaluation of Results

After the training sessions, the students were again given a questionnaire to determine whether and to what extent the respondents' attitudes and perceptions had changed. The questionnaires included yes-no responses, responses based on a five-point Likert scale, and also offered respondents the opportunity to provide free-text responses. The questionnaires were statistically analyzed and presented in an Excel-based manner. MAXQDA was used to analyze the participant observation.

October 2022