Journal of pain and symptom management
-
J Pain Symptom Manage · Feb 2017
Estimating the global need for palliative care for children: A cross-sectional analysis.
The need for children's palliative care (CPC) globally is unknown. To understand the scope of the need and to advocate to meet it, more accurate estimates are needed. ⋯ The estimation of need for CPC is a critical step in meeting the needs of children with life-threatening conditions and provides a sound platform to advocate for closure of the unacceptably wide gaps in coverage.
-
J Pain Symptom Manage · Feb 2017
Randomized Controlled TrialDignity Therapy and Life Review for Palliative Care Patients: A Randomised Controlled Trial.
Dignity therapy (DT) is a psychotherapeutic intervention with increasing evidence of acceptability and utility in palliative care settings. ⋯ This study provides initial evidence that the specific process of legacy creation is able to positively affect sense of generativity, meaning, and acceptance near end of life. High acceptability and satisfaction rates for both DT and LR and positive impacts on families/carers of DT participants provide additional support for clinical utility of these interventions. Further evaluation of specific mechanisms of change post-intervention is required given DT's uncertain efficacy on other primary outcomes.
-
J Pain Symptom Manage · Feb 2017
Respiratory symptoms, sleep, and quality of life in patients with advanced lung cancer.
Maintenance of quality of life and symptom management are important in lung cancer therapy. To the author's knowledge, the interplay of respiratory symptoms and sleep disturbance in affecting quality of life in advanced lung cancer remains unexamined. ⋯ Respiratory symptoms and sleep disturbance were common in the advanced lung cancer patients and had a negative impact on their quality of life; sleep disturbance may mediate the relationship between respiratory symptoms and quality of life.
-
J Pain Symptom Manage · Feb 2017
The relationship between poor quality of life and desire to hasten death: A multiple mediation model examining the contributions of depression, demoralization, loss of control, and low self-worth.
The risk of suicide is elevated in palliative care patients compared with the general population. Various psychological factors, including depression, demoralization, loss of control, and low self-worth, have been associated with a desire to hasten death. ⋯ Depression, loss of meaning and purpose, loss of control, and low self-worth are strong clinical markers for desire to hasten death. Targeting these symptoms through existentially oriented therapies, such as meaning-centered therapy, may ameliorate suicidal thinking.
-
J Pain Symptom Manage · Feb 2017
The use of life-sustaining procedures in the last month of life is associated with more depressive symptoms in surviving spouses.
Family caregivers of individuals with serious illness who undergo intensive life-sustaining medical procedures at the end of life may be at risk of negative consequences including depression. ⋯ Surviving spouses of those who undergo intensive life-sustaining procedures at the end of life experience a greater magnitude of increase in depressive symptoms than those whose spouses do not undergo such procedures. Further study of the circumstances and decision making surrounding these procedures is needed to understand their relationship with survivors' negative mental health consequences and how best to provide appropriate support.