Palliative Treatment and Traditional Medicine Among Patients with Cancer in Kumasi, Ghana: Needs for Patient Education

Late-stage cancers are common in Ghana. Therefore, palliative care is essential to support advanced cancer patients. Little is known about patients’ knowledge and attitudes towards palliative treatment and traditional healing. Therefore, we compared patients’ knowledge and attitudes about palliative treatment and traditional medicine among cancer patients in Kumasi, Ghana. The study included two groups of patients treated with palliative (94 patients) and radical treatment (100 patients). Questionnaires elicited information about patients’ knowledge and attitudes towards treatment, level of satisfaction of treatment, and whether patients combined traditional medicine with treatment. Compared to radical treatment patients, a lower proportion of palliative treatment patients believed that their treatment was intended for cure (palliative vs. radical: 38.3% vs. 64%, p = 0.0005). A larger proportion of palliative treatment patients used traditional medicine before their hospital visits (palliative vs. radical: 36.2% vs. 21%, p = 0.0191) and were dissatisfied with pain management (11% vs. 4%, p = 0.0447). A significantly higher proportion of patients with treatment length ≥ 6 months used more than one type of traditional medicine (37.8%), as compared to patients with treatment length < 6 months (7.1%). Patients lacked sufficient knowledge about their treatment intent, regardless of treatment mode. Patients receiving palliative treatment may require more medical attention to address pain management, and they may rely more on traditional medicine to cope with cancer. More educational efforts and medical support are needed collectively to improve patient knowledge about the intent and needs for palliative care in Ghana and other Sub-Saharan African countries.