ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: Proper education of hospice professionals is essential for ensuring quality of end-of-life care. In 2005, 'End-of-life Care Task Force Team' by Ministry of Health and Welfare established '60 hours of hospice education' as basic requirement for hospice professionals. This study is aimed to determine how many of the hospice professionals meet with the criteria and whether there are significant regional variations. METHODS: We analyzed the data from 46 hospice organizations, which submitted the application to the 2008 designation program of Ministry of Health, Welfare, and Family Affairs. Data included details of the educational records of each hospice professionals. RESULTS: Total 673 hospice professionals were included in the analysis. Overall, only 41.5% (279/673) met the requirement. Nurses (46.8%; 177/378) were more likely to meet the requirement than doctors (35.8%; 38/106), social workers (32.0%; 24/75) and clergies (35.1%; 40/114). Hospice professionals of the organizations in metropolitan area received more education than those in small cities or rural area (52.4% vs. 25.0% for doctors, 50.6% vs. 43.9% for nurses, 42.9% vs. 25.5% for social workers). By geographic areas, hospice professionals in southeast regions received less education than other part of Korea (28.1% vs. 43.0~48.8%, respectively). CONCLUSION: Less than half of the Korean hospice professionals has received proper amount of hospice education, and significant regional variations existed. National programs to promote the education of hospice professionals and eliminate its disparities are greatly warranted. Implementation of the 60-hour currirulum for hospice professionals, based on the train-the-trainer model, would be regarded as one potential solution.