Journal of palliative medicine
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Background: Crises that occur in home hospice care affect family caregivers' satisfaction with care and increase risk of disenrollment. Because hospice care focuses on achieving a peaceful death, understanding the prevalence and nature of crises that occur in this setting could help to improve end-of-life outcomes. Objective: To ascertain the prevalence and nature of, as well as factors associated with crises in the home hospice setting as reported by family caregivers. ⋯ Conclusions: A large minority of caregivers report perceiving a crisis while their loved one was receiving home hospice care. Physical (symptoms), psychological (emotional distress) function, and caregiver burden constituted the crises reported. Further studies are needed to better understand and address these gaps in care.
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Background: Lung transplant recipients who experience serious illness could benefit from specialty palliative care (SPC), but evidence suggests that referral has been rare. Objective: Examine the characteristics of post-transplant SPC encounters, utilization trends, and patient characteristics associated with SPC at a center with established SPC services. Design: Retrospective cohort study of SPC utilization by 597 lung transplant recipients transplanted between 2010 and 2015. ⋯ Conclusions: Lung transplant recipients may have palliative care needs early after transplantation. Increasing utilization suggests greater awareness of or changing attitudes about the utility of SPC for lung transplant recipients. Understanding transplant recipients' palliative care needs and transplant physicians' views of SPC is critical to improving the provision of SPC in lung transplantation.
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Background: Although palliative care is expanding globally for patients with serious illness, Turkey has not had widespread integration of early concurrent oncology palliative care. Hence, adapting and testing models of concurrent oncology palliative care for Turkish patients is imperative. Furthermore, it is critical that these care models also address the needs of family caregivers. ⋯ Caregivers emphasized their needs for information about symptoms, physical care, cancer pathology, and prognosis. Regarding the ENABLE model of early concurrent palliative care, participants wanted encounters to be in-person with educational material support that was simple and focused on disease information (prognosis, medication, handling emergency situations), psychological support, caring, nutrition, and acquiring community services. Conclusion: Themes from this study will be used to modify the ENABLE intervention protocol for future pilot and efficacy testing in Turkish caregivers.
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Background: Black cancer patients experience pain. Barriers to opioid medications for pain may include geographic factors. This study examines neighborhood factors associated with difficulties receiving prescription opioids from pharmacies for black cancer patients. ⋯ The main theme identified in analysis of an open-ended question was pharmacies not stocking medication. Neighborhood locations that rated higher on the amenities scale were protective for pharmacies sufficiently stocking opioids. Conclusions: Additional research on pharmacies sufficiently stocking opioid pain and neighborhood perceptions is warranted.
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Background: Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST) is an advance care planning tool that is designed to document end-of-life (EoL) care wishes of those living with limited life expectancies. Although positive impacts of POLST program has been studied, variations in state-specific POLST programs across the nation remain unknown. Objective: Identify state variations in POLST forms and determine if variations are associated with program maturity status. ⋯ No associations were found between POLST maturity status and provision of treatment options. Conclusions: Variations in integration of infection and symptom management options were identified. Further research is needed to determine if there are regional factors associated with provision of treatment options on POLST forms and if there are differences in actual rates of infection or symptoms reported.