Palliative medicine
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Palliative medicine · Sep 2018
Randomized Controlled TrialClinician-reported changes in octreotide prescribing for malignant bowel obstruction as a result of an adequately powered phase III study: A transnational, online survey.
Translating research evidence into clinical practice often has a long lag time. ⋯ Clinician-reported change in practice in the survey is seen in the majority of respondents. This suggests that there is a cohort of 'early adopters' within palliative care practice as new evidence becomes available.
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Palliative medicine · Apr 2018
Randomized Controlled TrialThe 'Cancer Home-Life Intervention': A randomised controlled trial evaluating the efficacy of an occupational therapy-based intervention in people with advanced cancer.
People with advanced cancer face difficulties with their everyday activities at home that may reduce their health-related quality of life. To address these difficulties, we developed the 'Cancer Home-Life Intervention'. ⋯ In most cases, the 'Cancer Home-Life Intervention' was delivered through only one home visit and one follow-up telephone contact, which not was effective in maintaining or improving participants' everyday activities and health-related quality of life. Future research should pay even more attention to intervention development and feasibility testing.
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Palliative medicine · Apr 2018
Randomized Controlled TrialDifferential effects of early palliative care based on the age and sex of patients with advanced cancer from a randomized controlled trial.
Early palliative care interventions enhance patient outcomes, including quality of life, mood, and coping, but it remains unclear whether certain subgroups of patients are more likely to benefit from early palliative care. We explored whether age and sex moderate the improved outcomes seen with early palliative care. ⋯ Age and sex moderate the effects of early palliative care for patients with advanced lung cancer. Early palliative care may need to be tailored to individuals' unique sociodemographic and clinical characteristics.
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Palliative medicine · Mar 2018
Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative StudyEffectiveness of advance care planning with family carers in dementia nursing homes: A paired cluster randomized controlled trial.
In dementia care, a large number of treatment decisions are made by family carers on behalf of their family member who lacks decisional capacity; advance care planning can support such carers in the decision-making of care goals. However, given the relative importance of advance care planning in dementia care, the prevalence of advance care planning in dementia care is poor. ⋯ Advance care planning was effective in reducing family carer uncertainty in decision-making concerning the care of their family member and improving perceptions of quality of care in nursing homes. Given the global significance of dementia, the implications for clinicians and policy makers include them recognizing the importance of family carer education and improving communication between family carers and formal care providers.
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Palliative medicine · Mar 2018
Randomized Controlled TrialEffects of two feedback interventions on end-of-life outcomes in nursing home residents with dementia: A cluster-randomized controlled three-armed trial.
Despite increased attention for palliative care in dementia, recent studies found burdensome symptoms and unmet family caregiver needs in the last phase of life. Feedback is being used to improve the quality of palliative care, but we do not know how effective it is. ⋯ Neither feedback strategy improved end-of-life outcome. Perhaps, skills to translate the feedback into care improvement actions were insufficient. Feedback with favorable family ratings might even have triggered opposite effects. Trial number: NTR3942.