Research Article The Opinion of General Practitioners, Medical Students, and Other Medical Specialists on Palliative Care in Bulgaria G. Foreva, 1 R. Asenova, 1 and M. Semerdjieva 2 1 Section General Medicine, Public Health Faculty, Medical University Plovdiv, 15A Vassil Aprilov Street, 4002 Plovdiv, Bulgaria 2 Department Health Care Management, Public Health Faculty, Medical University Plovdiv, 15A Vassil Aprilov Street, 4002 Plovdiv, Bulgaria Correspondence should be addressed to G. Foreva; gforeva@dir.bg Received 3 June 2013; Accepted 10 December 2013; Published 30 January 2014 Academic Editors: G. Becker, D. Heigener, and C. Knapp Copyright © 2014 G. Foreva et al. Tis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. In Bulgaria, the patient is entitled to palliative care in case of incurable disease with an unfavourable prognosis. Palliative care is provided by the family doctor/GP and institutions. Literature on palliative care providing is scarce. Te objective of the study was to investigate the opinion of general practitioners, medical students, and other medical specialists working in institutions on palliative care. Method. We have developed a structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics have been calculated for all items. Diferences between groups have been compared using u-criterion. Level of signifcance was  < 0.05. Data has been analyzed using SPSS v. 16. Results. A total of 518 respondents completed the survey. Lack of appropriate organisation and fnancing has been pointed out by all participants. Te GP’s role in palliative care providing has been described as a contradictory one. Te criteria on the basis of which the patients are eligible for palliative care have been arranged in the same way by all respondents, but GPs chose the longest temporal indicator. Quality assessment has not been applied. 2/3 of respondents demanded palliative care training. Conclusion. On the whole, the investigated groups difered to some extent in their opinion on palliative care both on conceptual and practical levels. 1. Introduction In the last 20 years, demographic development in Bulgaria has been characterized by population decline, a low birth rate, a high mortality rate, and ageing population. Health care reforms afer 1989 have provided changes in the structure and management of the health system; GPs have been established as providers of primary care and gatekeepers; the main fnancial source has been obtained from compulsory health insurance contributions in National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF). In spite of that fact, citizens as well as medical professionals are dissatisfed and the need for further reform is pronounced, particularly in view of the low health status of the population. Te term palliative care includes both the philosophy and organization of an approach that increases the quality of health care in three directions: alleviation of sufering, com- munication improvement, and coordination of care in dif- ferent settings. Palliative care in Bulgaria is underdeveloped regarding both community-based services and inpatient care; it has been provided by general practitioners, health institu- tions for out-of-hospital and hospital-based care, oncological health centres, and hospices and fnanced by compulsory health insurance. Moreover, the availability of palliative care facilities is insufcient. In most cases, patients tended to stay at family home, mainly because of fnancial reasons. Patients directly pay nursing homes. Te only clinical path in palliative care is for oncological patients in terminal stages. Tus, in general, palliative care is not organized well, and the role of general practitioners and other medical and nonmedical specialists in providing it is not established. Researches in this feld are insufcient and there is scarcity in the scientifc literature. Te objective of the study was to investigate the opinion of general practitioners, medical students, and other medical specialists working in institutions, on palliative care, focused on (1) organization, (2) GPs’ role, (3) identifcation of patients, (4) quality, and (5) medical specialists’ training needs in palliative care. Hindawi Publishing Corporation International Journal of Palliative Care Volume 2014, Article ID 631798, 4 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/631798