Importance of Training

This chapter addresses the importance of a proper training for health care professionals facing end of life care issues. A significant psychological and moral distress is associated with the management both of dying patients and of patients with progressive degenerative diseases without hope of definitive healing. The above distress involves not only physicians working in the Intensive Care Units (ICU) but also various health care figures acting in residential long-term care settings, with difficulties being peculiar to each specific context. The chapter address the main concern faced by Health Care Assistants in End-of-Life Care and highlights the importance of a preparatory training allowing the professionals to acquire specific skills and coping strategies, which are essential for an effective and evidenced-based management of the patients. The need for a specific training is even more evident if we consider the progressive aging of the population, with a growing need for End-of-Life Care assessments and a worldwide social and psychological burden. Nevertheless, the necessity of a specific training addressing end of life issues is still underestimated with medical students being mainly involved in saving lives and little or nothing trained in facing patients’ death.