Palliative medicine
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Palliative medicine · Sep 2017
Training hospital staff on spiritual care in palliative care influences patient-reported outcomes: Results of a quasi-experimental study.
Spiritual care is reported to be important to palliative patients. There is an increasing need for education in spiritual care. ⋯ The effects of spiritual care training can be measured using patient-reported outcomes and seemed to indicate a positive effect on the quality of care. Future research should focus on optimizing the spiritual care training to identify the most effective elements and developing strategies to ensure long-term positive effects. This study was registered at the Dutch Trial Register: NTR4559.
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Palliative medicine · Sep 2017
"Hope for the best, prepare for the worst": A qualitative interview study on parents' needs and fears in pediatric advance care planning.
Pediatric advance care planning is advocated by healthcare providers because it may increase the chance that patient and/or parent wishes are respected and thus improve end-of-life care. However, since end-of-life decisions for children are particularly difficult and charged with emotions, physicians are often afraid of addressing pediatric advance care planning. ⋯ Despite a need for pediatric advance care planning, it is perceived as challenging. Needs-adjusted content and process and continuity of communication should be a main focus in pediatric advance care planning. Future research should focus on strategies that facilitate parent engagement in pediatric advance care planning to increase the benefit for the families.
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Palliative medicine · Jul 2017
Shared decision making about palliative chemotherapy: A qualitative observation of talk about patients' preferences.
Particularly at the end of life, treatment decisions should be shared and incorporate patients' preferences. This study examines elaboration and preference construction. ⋯ Elaboration and joint preference construction is not standard practice in consultations on palliative chemotherapy. Oncologists may benefit from realising this and training skills that support this key step of shared decision making. Also, repeated shared decision making throughout the course of palliative chemotherapy should be stimulated.