Palliative medicine
-
Palliative medicine · Dec 2023
'Thank goodness you're here'. Exploring the impact on patients, family carers and staff of enhanced 7-day specialist palliative care services: A mixed methods study.
Healthcare usage patterns change for people with life limiting illness as death approaches, with increasing use of out-of-hours services. How best to provide care out of hours is unclear. ⋯ Enhanced seven-day services provide high quality integrated palliative care, with positive experiences for patients, carers and staff.
-
Palliative medicine · Dec 2023
Mutual support between patients and family caregivers in palliative care: A qualitative study.
Patients in receipt of palliative care services are often viewed primarily as recipients of support from their family caregiver. There is a dearth of evidence in palliative care on what comprises mutual support between patients and their family caregivers in palliative care. ⋯ The findings inform the development and delivery of psychosocial interventions for patients and family caregivers in palliative care aimed at facilitating supportive relations between them.
-
Palliative medicine · Dec 2023
Family carer experiences of hospice care at home: Qualitative findings from a mixed methods realist evaluation.
Hospice-at-home aims to enable patients approaching end-of-life to die at home and support their carers. A wide range of different service models exists but synthesised evidence on how best to support family carers to provide sustainable end-of-life care at home is limited. ⋯ Carers in hospice-at-home services identified care to be of a higher quality than generic community services. Hospice staff were perceived as having 'time to care', communicated well and were comfortable with dying and death. Hands-on care was particularly valued in the period close to death.
-
Palliative medicine · Dec 2023
A grounded theory of interdependence between specialist and generalist palliative care teams across healthcare settings.
Individuals with palliative care needs face increased risk of discontinuity of care as they navigate between healthcare settings, locations and practitioners which can result in poor outcomes. Little is known about interactions that occur between specialist and generalist palliative care teams as patients are transition from hospital to community-based care after hospitalisation. ⋯ Teams need to explicitly consider and agree their mode of functioning, and enact changes to enhance knowledge of the team, intentional communication and valuing other teams' contributions. Future research is needed to test or expand this theory across a range of cultures and contexts.