ArticleBMC research notes2025
Physicians' views of the use of morphine in palliative care: a cross-sectional survey from a tertiary care centre in Northern Sri Lanka.
Article in BMC research notes, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundPalliative care is not readily available in many lower middle-income countries and Sri Lanka is not an exemption for this. Morphine is one of the key drug available for symptoms (pain and dyspnoea) alleviation among palliative care patients. However, due to various reasons, it was noted that morphine drug was underutilised in palliation. No studies have been done to identify reasons for underutilisation in Northern Sri Lanka. As such, this study attempts to identify factors that limit the usage of morphine in palliative care among physicians working at Teaching Hospital, Jaffna.
methodsThis cross-sectional survey was conducted among 216 physicians in March-April 2024 using a self-administrated questionnaire distributed to them. Data was analysed using SPSS (29). Self-rated physicians' confident level of morphine initiation in palliative care patients was assessed in the scale of 0-10 and reported in mean with standard deviation (SD).
resultsThe majority were females (55.1%) and exactly half of the physicians (50.0%) had less than 5 years of working experience. The mean score of the confident level of physicians in initiating morphine for palliative care patients was 4.84+_2.74. Furthermore, mean score was less among females in comparison to males (P-0.005). Just above 50% of them (50.5%) reported that the undergraduate education about pharmacology and clinical usage regarding morphine may be adequate and 15.2% reported that it was not adequate at all.
conclusionThere is a great need for training for physicians on morphine prescribing in palliative care in Northern Sri Lanka. Major reasons for not prescribing morphine among physicians were lack of confident or not familiar with palliative care, shortage of drugs, patient refusal and relative refusal.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.