Palliative care physicians and Palliative radiotherapy, knowledge and barriers for referring: A cross-sectional study.

A cross-sectional study based on a 15-item questionnaire. The survey included three sections: (1) respondent characteristics; (2) factors influencing referral for Palliative Radiotherapy and (3) knowledge in Palliative Radiotherapy and access to continuing medical education. The questionnaire was pilot tested in a group of physicians (n=6) in order to stablish face validity, ease of completion, content and completion time of 5-10 minutes. Knowledge about Palliative radiotherapy was assessed through the score achieved by respondents from a list of fourteen possible indications with different grades of recommendation.