Palliative medicine
-
Palliative medicine · Mar 2015
Multicenter StudyA survey of clinician attitudes and self-reported practices regarding end-of-life care in heart failure.
As heart failure often follows an unpredictable clinical trajectory, there has been an impetus to promote iterative patient-provider discussions regarding prognosis and preferences for end-of-life care. ⋯ Clinicians vary in their views and approaches to end-of-life discussions and care. Some lack confidence and most are interested in further skills acquisition.
-
Palliative medicine · Jan 2015
Multicenter StudyPalliative Care Phase: inter-rater reliability and acceptability in a national study.
The concept of palliative care consisting of five distinct, clinically meaningful, phases (stable, unstable, deteriorating, terminal and bereavement) was developed in Australia about 20 years ago and is used routinely for communicating clinical status, care planning, quality improvement and funding. ⋯ Policy makers, funders and clinicians can be confident that Palliative Care Phase is a reliable and acceptable measure that can be used for care planning, quality improvement and funding purposes.
-
Palliative medicine · Jan 2015
Multicenter StudyEvaluation of measurement equivalence of the Family Satisfaction with the End-of-Life Care in an ethnically diverse cohort: tests of differential item functioning.
The Family Satisfaction with End-of-Life Care is an internationally used measure of satisfaction with cancer care. However, the Family Satisfaction with End-of-Life Care has not been studied for equivalence of item endorsement across different socio-demographic groups using differential item functioning. ⋯ Differential item functioning was observed primarily for race and education. No differential item functioning of high magnitude was observed for any item, and the overall impact of differential item functioning was negligible. One item, satisfaction with "the patient's pain relief," might be singled out for further study, given that this item was both hypothesized and observed to show differential item functioning for race and education.
-
Palliative medicine · Apr 2014
Multicenter Study Observational StudyQuality-of-Life assessment in malignant pleural effusion treated with indwelling pleural catheter: a prospective study.
Malignant pleural effusion is a clinical problem that impairs Quality of Life in patients with advanced malignancies. An indwelling pleural catheter is an alternative treatment to palliate some of the symptoms. ⋯ Indwelling pleural catheter is useful for palliative management of recurrent malignant pleural effusion in that it benefits Quality of Life in outpatients with advanced malignancies. In lung cancer patients, scores indicated that indwelling pleural catheter also provides significant relief of dyspnea.
-
Palliative medicine · Sep 2013
Multicenter StudyNeuropathic cancer pain: prevalence, severity, analgesics and impact from the European Palliative Care Research Collaborative-Computerised Symptom Assessment study.
Neuropathic pain causes greater pain intensity and worse quality of life than nociceptive pain. There are no published data that confirm this in the cancer population. ⋯ Neuropathic cancer pain is associated with a negative impact on daily living and greater analgesic requirements than nociceptive cancer pain. Validated assessment methods are needed to enable early identification of neuropathic cancer pain, leading to more appropriate treatment and reduced burden on patients.