Journal of pain and symptom management
-
J Pain Symptom Manage · Aug 2013
The development and validation of a shorter version of the Canadian Health Care Evaluation Project Questionnaire (CANHELP Lite): a novel tool to measure patient and family satisfaction with end-of-life care.
The recently developed Canadian Health Care Evaluation Project (CANHELP) questionnaire, which can be used to assess both patient and family satisfaction with end-of-life care, takes 40-60 minutes to complete. The length of the interview may limit its uptake and clinical utility; a shorter version would make its use more feasible. ⋯ The CANHELP Lite questionnaire is a valid and internally consistent instrument to measure satisfaction with end-of-life care.
-
J Pain Symptom Manage · Aug 2013
Clinical TrialMinimal clinically important differences in the Edmonton symptom assessment system in patients with advanced cancer.
Longitudinal symptom monitoring is important in the setting of patients with advanced cancer. Scores over time may naturally fluctuate, although a patient may feel the same. ⋯ MCIDs allow health care professionals to determine the success of treatment in improving the patient's quality of life. MCIDs may prompt health care professionals to intervene with new treatment. Future studies should confirm our findings with a variety of anchors.
-
J Pain Symptom Manage · Aug 2013
Randomized Controlled TrialDoes assessing patients' expectancies about chemotherapy side effects influence their occurrence?
Increasing evidence suggests a link between patients' expectancies and post-chemotherapy side effects. However, it remains unclear whether asking patients about their expectancies might actually increase side effects. ⋯ These findings suggest that patient expectancies might be a useful point of intervention for attempting to reduce the burden of chemotherapy-related side effects, as there do not appear to be any detrimental effects of asking patients to report their expectancies and their expectancies do appear related to the occurrence of post-treatment side effects.
-
J Pain Symptom Manage · Aug 2013
Comparing the retrospective reports of fatigue using the Fatigue Symptom Index with daily diary ratings in women receiving chemotherapy for gynecologic cancer.
Fatigue, one of the most common side effects of chemotherapy, is typically assessed via retrospective recall (e.g., over the past week). It is unknown how such retrospective recall of fatigue correlates with daily ratings among people receiving chemotherapy. ⋯ The FSI keyed to the past week accurately reflects daily ratings of fatigue among patients receiving chemotherapy. This study has important implications, as completing retrospective ratings of fatigue may be less burdensome for cancer patients than daily assessments.