Abstract:
Background: Palliative care is a way of avoiding and easing suffering in patients and their
families who are dealing with the problems that come with a life-threatening illness by detecting
and treating pain and other medical, psychosocial, and spiritual issues early on. However, for a
variety of reasons, clients were not fully utilizing the palliative care services offered by healthcare
facilities. The factors that determine the use of palliative care services are not well studied in
Ethiopia.
Objective: To assess palliative care service utilization & associated factors affecting cancer
patients at public hospitals oncology units in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2022
Methods: An institution-based cross-sectional study design was carried out. A structured and pre tested questionnaire was administered to 404 of 414 participants at Tikur Anbesa Specialized
Hospital and Saint Paul's Hospital Millennium Medical College from July 4 to August 2, 2022. A
systematic random sampling technique was used to select the study participants. The data was
collected by ODK-Collect version 3.5 software and exported to excel and then to SPSS version 25
for recoding, cleaning, and analysis. Logistic regression model was employed. P-values <0.05
were regarded as statistically significant.
Result: About 404 participants’ responded questionnaire giving a 97.6% response rate. The
prevalence of Palliative care service utilization was 35.4% [95% CI: 31.4, 40.3%]. College or
university education were 2.3 times more likely and living in a distance of <23 km from PC
service centers were 1.8 times more likely to use palliative care services. Factors hindering
palliative care service utilization were inability to read & write, treatment side effects, long
distance to a health institution, and low satisfaction with the health care service.
Conclusion: The prevalence of palliative care service utilization which was low. Factors to
palliative care service utilization were clients’ education level, treatment side effects, distance to a
health institution, and patients’ satisfaction. Interventions to enhance health education and
counseling of cancer patients, early detection and management of treatment side effects and
accessibility of palliative care services for cancer patients should be emphasized and implemented
by all concerned stakeholders.
