Journal of palliative medicine
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Proxy reporting is frequently used to assess symptom distress of patients with advanced chronic organ failure. The aim of the present cross-sectional study was to examine agreement in severity of symptom distress, presence of symptom-related interventions, and satisfaction with medical treatment among patients with advanced chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), chronic heart failure (CHF) and chronic renal failure (CRF) and their family caregivers. ⋯ Studies using proxy reporting reflect the views of proxies and do not accurately represent the patients' experience. For clinical care, it's important to pay attention to the perception from the patient as well as the perception from the family caregiver of symptom distress, presence of symptom-related interventions, and satisfaction with treatment.
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Recent studies suggest that surrogate decision makers may be too optimistic about their end-of-life decision making abilities for loved ones. We examined surrogates' decision making confidence with an emphasis on its linkages to their understandings of patients' values and goals for end-of-life care. ⋯ Surrogates' confidence had little association with their actual understanding of patients' values and goals. Interventions to prepare patients and surrogates for end-of-life decision making may need to address overconfidence and help surrogates recognize their limited understanding of patients' values and goals.
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Barriers to providing quality end-of-life (EOL) care in the intensive care unit (ICU) are common, but little is known about how these barriers vary by level of training or discipline. ⋯ We found that perceived barriers to EOL care differed significantly by level of training, discipline and institution, suggesting the interventions to improve EOL care may need to be locally targeted and specific to level of training and discipline.