The development of the Physicians' End-of-Life Care Attitude Scale

The Physicians' End-of-Life Care Attitude Scale (PEAS) was developed as an outcome measure for palliative care education. PEAS assesses the willingnes s of medical trainees to care for dying patients. Sixty-four Likert-type qu estions were created on the basis of discussions with focus groups of medic al trainees, then administered to sixty-two medical students and residents. Total PEAS scores as well as personal preparation and professional role su bscales (where higher scores indicated greater concern) possessed excellent internal consistency and reliability. In addition, there were substantial correlations between PEAS scores and the CA-Dying scale, a measure of laype rsons' fears about interacting with dying persons. Thus, PEAS adequately as sesses the unique communication concerns of physicians in training regardin g working with dying persons and their families. Correlations between PEAS scores and age were negative, while those who had experienced the death of a loved one had higher PEAS scores than those who did not. This suggests th at for some persons, life experiences may lessen difficulties in dealing wi th dying persons, while for others, personal losses may exacerbate such con cerns. The utility of PEAS in evaluating the efficacy of palliative care ed ucation as well as its potential to measure medical trainee's willingness t o care for the terminally ill is discussed.