To assess the knowledge and awareness of End-of-life Care (EOLC) among doctors working in Intensive Care Units.

IEnd-of-life care (EOLC) is anincreasingly important concern in management of terminally-ill patients.Effective EOLC depends significantly on the physicians working in the critical careunits. Thus, adequate knowledge of critical care professionals regarding EOLCis important. We conducted this study to evaluate the awareness and knowledgeof doctors working in critical care units towards EOLC

Methods: Doctorsworking in critical care units were invited to fill paper-based questionnaire. Thevalidated questionnaire was constructed based on existing literature on EOLCand expert opinion. The questionnaire comprised of 4 sections: demographicdetails, experience with EOLC situations, general awareness of EOLC, andspecific awareness of EOLC in clinical practice. The collected data wasanalysed by descriptive analysis.

***Results:***Most respondents had not counselled >5 families regarding EOLC over onemonth. Majority of the respondents (81.7%) had heard of EOLC; the major sourceof information being their work in the concerned speciality. Only 29.2% of therespondents applied EOLC principles in their clinical practice. Main barrierswere lack of information and training. Only 20.3% of the respondents were awareof Indian guidelines about EOLC. Majority of respondents disagree regardingusage of critical care units and resuscitation of terminally ill patient andwere in favour of home care. One-third respondents felt uncomfortable indiscussing EOLC issues with the families. Half of the respondents felt thatthey were only somewhat competent in managing EOLC issues. Most respondentsopined that training and education in medical curriculum for terminally illpatients is lacking and was in strong favour of inclusion of specific trainingfor the same.

Conclusion: Palliative care needs to be an integral part ofcritical care management and teaching curriculum. An integral referral systemmay also be an option for various advance diseases patients getting treatmentfrom critical care specialist for decision for EOLC.