Journal of pain and symptom management
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J Pain Symptom Manage · May 2021
Development and validation of the QUALI-PALLI-FAM questionnaire for assessing relatives' perception of quality of inpatient palliative care: A prospective cross-sectional survey.
Relatives of patients receiving palliative care are at risk for psychological and physical distress, and their perception of quality of care can influence patients' quality of life. ⋯ The QUALI-PALLI-FAM appears to be a valid, reliable, and well-accepted tool to explore relatives' perception of quality of inpatient palliative care and complements the QUALI-PALLI-PAT questionnaire. Further testing is required in various settings and countries.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · May 2021
Workforce Planning for Community-based Palliative Care Specialist Teams using Operations Research.
Many countries have aging populations. Thus, the need for palliative care will increase. However, the methods to estimate optimal staffing for specialist palliative care teams are rudimentary as yet. ⋯ Historical, current, and projected data can be used with operations research to forecast staffing levels for specialist palliative care teams under various scenarios. The forecast can be updated as new data emerge, applied to other populations, and used to test alternative delivery models.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · May 2021
Observational StudySelection Bias in Observational Studies of Palliative Care: Lessons Learned.
Palliative care (PC) programs are typically evaluated using observational data, raising concerns about selection bias. ⋯ This case study demonstrates that selection of comparison groups impacts the magnitude of measured and unmeasured confounding, which may change effect estimates. The substantial impact of confounding on effect estimates in this study raises concerns about the evaluation of novel serious illness care models in the absence of randomization. We present key lessons learned for improving future evaluations of PC using observational study designs.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · May 2021
Is pain assessment of community-dwelling persons with advanced dementia by family and paid care workers feasible?
The experience of pain is aggravated among older persons with advanced dementia (OPAD). It is often undetected and therefore untreated because of their limited capacity to identify and report their symptoms. Therefore, it is crucial to improve the pain identification skills of those who know and live with them. ⋯ This study shows that it is feasible to improve the assessment and identification of pain among OPAD, through the use of validated tools by family members and paid care workers, suggesting the potential to improve quality of care and quality of life of OPAD.