Journal of pain and symptom management
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Oct 2023
ReviewThe Experience of Black Patients with Serious Illness in the United States: A Scoping Review.
Black patients experience health disparities in access and quality of care. ⋯ More articles focused on establishing evidence of disparities between Black and White patients than on understanding their root causes. Further investigation is warranted to understand how factors at the patient, provider, health system, and society levels interact to remediate disparities.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Oct 2023
Post-Vaccine Era COVID-19 Pandemic-related Distress in Palliative Care Patients with Advanced Cancer.
The COVID-19 pandemic represents a source of distress in patients with advanced cancer; however, few studies have examined the extent of pandemic-related distress in the postvaccine era. ⋯ Patients with advanced cancer continued to experience pandemic-related distress in the postvaccine era. Our findings highlight potential opportunities to support patients.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Oct 2023
Randomized Controlled TrialThe Quick FICS: 5 and 10 Item Versions of The Family Inpatient Communication Survey.
Communication quality in the hospital impacts outcomes like satisfaction, depression, and anxiety for families, and assessment tools must be efficient and reliable. ⋯ The Quick FICS offers efficient, valid, and reliable evaluation of communication quality in the hospital that can be useful for research and quality improvement.
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Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is an incurable neurodegenerative disease of the motor neurons. Given the evolutive characteristics of this disease, palliative care principles should be a foundation of ALS care. A multidisciplinary medical intervention is of paramount importance in the different phases of disease. ⋯ The principal problems which require intensive supportive care include cognitive disturbances, psychological distress, pain, sialorrhrea, nutrition, and ventilatory support. Communication skills of health-care professionals are mandatory to manage the inevitability of death. Palliative sedation has peculiar aspects in this population, particularly with the decision of withdrawing ventilatory support.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Oct 2023
Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship Training in Mental Health: A Survey of Program Directors.
Psychological and psychiatric care is a core domain of palliative care. Despite a high burden of mental health comorbidity among individuals with serious illness, the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education gives little guidance about training hospice and palliative medicine (HPM) fellows in this domain of care. Currently, there is a lack of empiric data on HPM physician fellowship training in mental health topics. ⋯ Beyond a few commonly identified and taught key topics, there is variability in clinical and didactic exposure to mental health training among HPM fellowships. Standardizing key learning objectives and guiding educators in how to achieve these objectives could improve the preparedness of the physician workforce in HPM to meet the mental health needs of patients with serious illness.