Articles: palliative-care.
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Multicenter Study Clinical Trial
Prospective comparison of prognostic scores in palliative care cancer populations.
Predicting prognosis in advanced cancer aids physicians in clinical decision making and can help patients and their families to prepare for the time ahead. ⋯ It can be confirmed that all four prognostic scores used in palliative care studies accurately identify classes of patients with different survival probabilities. The PaP Score has been extensively validated and shows high accuracy and reproducibility in different settings.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Jan 2012
Multicenter StudyProviding palliative care for cancer patients: the views and exposure of community general practitioners and district nurses in Japan.
The role of general practitioners (GPs) and district nurses (DNs) is increasingly important to achieve dying at home. ⋯ Japanese GPs have little experience in caring for cancer patients dying at home, whereas DNs have more experience. To achieve quality palliative care programs for cancer patients at the regional level, educating GPs about opioids and psychiatric medications, easily available palliative care consultation services, systems to support home care technology, and coordinated systems to alleviate family burden is of importance.
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Multicenter Study
Prospective evaluation of quality of life effects in patients undergoing palliative radiotherapy for brain metastases.
Recently published results of quality of life (QoL) studies indicated different outcomes of palliative radiotherapy for brain metastases. This prospective multi-center QoL study of patients with brain metastases was designed to investigate which QoL domains improve or worsen after palliative radiotherapy and which might provide prognostic information. ⋯ Moderate deterioration in several QoL domains was predominantly observed three months after start of palliative radiotherapy for brain metastases. Future studies will need to address the individual subjective benefit or burden from such treatment. Baseline QoL scores before palliative radiotherapy for brain metastases may contain prognostic information.
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Multicenter Study
Children dying from cancer: parents' perspectives on symptoms, quality of life, characteristics of death, and end-of-life decisions.
In this study, we investigated the experience of children who died of cancer, as perceived by their parents. All the pediatric oncology departments in one German federal state were contacted and asked to invite parents who had lost a child to cancer in the period 2005-2006 to participate. Those parents who accepted were interviewed by means of a semi-structured questionnaire. ⋯ In all, 64 percent of the children received home care services; 50 percent died at home, and only 10 percent in the ICU. Results suggest that some progress has been made in pediatric palliative care. To further improve end-of-life care for children with cancer, it is also necessary to evaluate parents' perspectives on structures for pediatric palliative care delivery.
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Multicenter Study
Turkish healthcare professionals' views on palliative care.
The concept of modern palliative care has been disseminating slowly in Turkey and has recently been included in the National Cancer Control Program. The aim of this study was to explore healthcare professionals' knowledge and views of palliative care. It was conducted at three hospitals with a sample of 369 healthcare professionals working in adult clinics. ⋯ Most respondents stated that there was a lack of in-service/continuing education in palliative care, and more than half said they had not received any education in palliative care. A majority stated that the meaning and goal of palliative care is "improving the quality of life of a patient who is in the terminal stage." Lack of awareness of palliative care and a lack of educational resources in that field are the most frequently reported barriers to the development of palliative care in Turkey. Palliative care should be included in curricula for healthcare professionals and in-service education programs should be established.