Focus Group Study: 30% Believe Hospice Intentionally Hastens Death

Hospice News / By Holly Vossel

About 30% of participants in a recent study said they believe that “hospice intentionally hastens death and the dying process.”

The data appeared in a recently developed evidence-based serious illness messaging toolkit from the MessageLab Serious Illness Messaging Project. The toolkit identifies new approaches for hospice and palliative care providers to break down barriers of public misperception and apprehension of their services.

One key consideration in hospices’ public messaging is that, in today’s media and technology climate, consumers access information quickly and in small doses. This means hospices have to achieve more with less in their efforts to reach consumers, according to Dr. Tony Back, primary investigator at the MessageLab Serious Illness Messaging Project.

“We have to stop trying to confront people about dying and expecting them to accept that in some kind of social media or video post. It’s just not going to happen,” Back told Hospice News. “We’re not gaining a new consumer audience or increasing public awareness in hospice and palliative. We’re not improving levels of misconception that exist about our field. There are messaging principles we can employ to improve how hospices introduce their work to the public.”

Back is also a professor of medicine and palliative care physician at the University of Washington in Seattle, co-director at the Cambia Palliative Care Center of Excellence, and co-founder of VitalTalk.

Public misunderstandings about hospice and palliative care have long-plagued the field. Hospice providers have continuously sought marketing and outreach strategies that demonstrate the benefits and value of their services to patients and families.

But many hospices’ public messaging approaches fall short of what’s needed to dispel myths, alleviate fears, and improve awareness, according to researchers.

MessageLab researchers reviewed a wide variety of public messaging, designs and other marketing components and analytics in the hospice and palliative care space to uncover common trends and issues. Armed with this information, they developed guidelines for improved communication.

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