Journal of pain and symptom management
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Jan 2025
ReviewRacism in Pediatric Serious Illness and Palliative Care: A Scoping Review of Qualitative Research.
Racial disparities in health outcomes have historically impacted Black and Native American children with serious illness, yet little is known about how racism shapes the healthcare experiences of these families. To improve care experiences for this population, we must understand the myriad of ways that racism may impact their experiences with serious illness. ⋯ Our findings highlight the pressing need for further qualitative research to explore the lived experiences of racially minoritized families-especially studies focusing on the experiences of Native American families.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Jan 2025
Should an acute palliative care unit be mandatory for cancer centers and tertiary care hospitals?
Acute palliative care units have been developing in the last years and their clinical activity and characteristics have been described, despite large differences in different countries. One controversial topic is whether such units should be mandatory as standard in comprehensive cancer centers or even in tertiary hospitals. ⋯ Interestingly, all three experts arrived at similar conclusions. They underscored the importance of an acute palliative care unit, which provides a different pattern of activities in comparison with typical inpatient hospices, generally caring for patients who have a limited expected survival.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Jan 2025
Developing a Scale for Home-Visit Nurses to Start End-of-life Discussions with Cancer Patients.
Home-visit nurses find it challenging to determine the appropriate time to initiate end-of-life discussions with cancer patients. ⋯ The reliability and validity of the T-EOLD is acceptable, as it is an appropriate scale that home-visit nurses can use to determine the time to initiate end-of-life discussions with cancer patients. However, further study is required to examine T-EOLD's clinical utility, both nationally and internationally.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Jan 2025
Variation in Palliative Care Program Performance for Patients with Metastatic Cancer.
While specialist palliative care is associated with improved end-of-life quality metrics for patients with advanced cancer, its effectiveness may differ between hospitals. ⋯ We found variation in most end-of-life quality metrics for patients with metastatic cancer. Further work is needed to better understand why variations exist and whether such variations reflect a difference in quality of care.