Journal of pain and symptom management
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Sep 2020
Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Utilization of Hospice Care Services: A Cohort Study in Taiwan.
Hospice care focuses on improving the quality of end-of-life care and respecting patients' preferences regarding end-of-life treatment. The impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on the utilization of hospice services is unknown. ⋯ This study suggests that hospice home care services were maintained during the COVID-19 pandemic, while the utilization of hospice inpatient care services reduced. Home care for hospice patients is an essential component of palliative care during a pandemic.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Sep 2020
Understanding End of Life Preferences: Predicting Life Prolonging Treatment Preferences among Community Dwelling Older Americans.
To determine how demographic, socioeconomic, health, and psychosocial factors predict preferences to accept life-prolonging treatments (LPTs) at the end of life (EOL). ⋯ Approximately one-third of older Americans would accept LPT in the setting of severe disability or severe chronic pain at the EOL. Adults who discussed their EOL preferences were more likely to reject LPT. Conversely, minorities were more likely to accept LPT. Sociodemographics, physical capacity, and health status were poor predictors of acceptance of LPT. A better understanding of the complexities of LPT preferences is important to ensuring patient-centered care.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Sep 2020
The Creation of a Psychiatry-Palliative Care Liaison Team: Utilizing Psychiatrists to Extend Palliative Care Delivery and Access during the COVID-19 Crisis.
During the course of March and April 2020, New York City experienced a surge of a 170,000 coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases, overwhelming hospital systems and leading to an unprecedented need for palliative care services. ⋯ By training and supervising psychiatrists and advanced psychiatry trainees in specific palliative care roles, palliative care teams could more effectively meet markedly increased service needs of varying complexity during the COVID-19 crisis. As new geographic regions experience possible COVID-19 surges in the coming months, this may serve as a model for rapidly increasing palliative care workforce.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Sep 2020
The Urgency of Spiritual Care: COVID-19 and the Critical Need for Whole-Person Palliation.
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis has amplified the importance of palliative care to countless patients suffering with and dying from this disease, as well as to their families, communities, and the worldwide cadre of overburdened health care workers. Particularly urgent is the need for spiritual care specialists and generalists to address spiritual suffering given the degree of isolation, loneliness, and vulnerability caused by this pandemic. ⋯ All disciplines are ultimately responsible for ensuring that spiritual care is prioritized to improve quality of life and the experience of patients and families facing spiritual emergencies amid the complex life-and-death scenarios inherent to coronavirus disease 2019. Although the pandemic has revealed serious fault lines in many health care domains, it has also underscored the need to recommit to spiritual care as an essential component of whole-person palliative care.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Sep 2020
Attitudes and Beliefs Towards Advance Care Planning among Underserved Chinese-American Immigrants.
Many in the rapidly growing Chinese-American population are non-English-speaking and medically underserved, and few engage in advance care planning (ACP). Evaluating culturally-determined factors that may inhibit ACP can inform programs designed to increase ACP engagement. ⋯ These Chinese-American older adults had low acculturation and very limited knowledge of, or engagement in, ACP. Factors that may predict culturally-determined attitudes and beliefs about ACP were not identified. Further research can inform efforts to improve ACP engagement in this population.