Palliative medicine
-
Palliative medicine · Sep 2019
A brief, patient- and proxy-reported outcome measure in advanced illness: Validity, reliability and responsiveness of the Integrated Palliative care Outcome Scale (IPOS).
Few measures capture the complex symptoms and concerns of those receiving palliative care. ⋯ The Integrated Palliative care Outcome Scale is a valid and reliable outcome measure, both in patient self-report and staff proxy-report versions. It can assess and monitor symptoms and concerns in advanced illness, determine the impact of healthcare interventions, and demonstrate quality of care. This represents a major step forward internationally for palliative care outcome measurement.
-
Palliative medicine · Sep 2019
The incidence and prevalence of delirium across palliative care settings: A systematic review.
Delirium is a common and distressing neurocognitive condition that frequently affects patients in palliative care settings and is often underdiagnosed. ⋯ Delirium is prevalent across all palliative care settings, with one-third of patients delirious at the time of admission to inpatient palliative care. Study heterogeneity limits meta-analyses and highlights the future need for rigorous studies.
-
Palliative medicine · Sep 2019
Inclusion, characteristics and outcomes of people requiring palliative care in studies of non-pharmacological interventions for delirium: A systematic review.
Delirium is common, distressing, serious and under-researched in specialist palliative care settings. ⋯ Non-pharmacological delirium interventions have frequently excluded and under-characterised people requiring palliative care and infrequently reported their outcomes.
-
Palliative medicine · Sep 2019
Establishing key criteria to define and compare models of specialist palliative care: A mixed-methods study using qualitative interviews and Delphi survey.
Specialist palliative care services have various configurations of staff, processes and interventions, which determine how care is delivered. Currently, there is no consistent way to define and distinguish these different models of care. ⋯ In this innovative study, we derive 20 criteria to characterise and differentiate models of specialist palliative care - a major paradigm shift to enable accurate reporting and comparison in practice and research.
-
Palliative medicine · Sep 2019
Video consultations in palliative care: A systematic integrative review.
There is extensive need for palliative care worldwide, but access to care remains inadequate, especially for non-cancer patients. Video consultations are a promising tool in the provision of home-based palliative care, but an overview of evidence solely on video consultations in palliative care is lacking. ⋯ Using video technology in palliative care has both advantages and disadvantages. However, evidence beyond the focus on specialized palliative care and patients with cancer is limited. Future research should focus on how and when video consultations might replace in-person specialized palliative care and video consultations in general palliative care, in low and middle income countries; and involve patients with a non-cancer diagnosis.