-
J Pain Symptom Manage · Jun 2023
Review Meta AnalysisPalliative Care Interventions Effects on Psychological Distress: A Systematic Review & Meta-Analysis.
- Molly A Nowels, Saurabh Kalra, Paul R Duberstein, Emily Coakley, Biren Saraiya, Login George, and Elissa Kozlov.
- Department of Health Behavior, Society, and Policy (M.A.N., S.K., P.R.D., E.C., E.K.), Rutgers School of Public Health, Piscataway, New Jersey, USA; Center for Health Services Research (M.A.N.), Institute for Health, Health Care Policy, and Aging Research, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA. Electronic address: man209@sph.rutgers.edu.
- J Pain Symptom Manage. 2023 Jun 1; 65 (6): e691e713e691-e713.
BackgroundManaging psychological distress is an objective of palliative care. No meta-analysis has evaluated whether palliative care reduces psychological distress.ObjectivesExamine the effects of palliative care on depression, anxiety, and general psychological distress for adults with life-limiting illnesses and their caregivers.DesignWe searched PubMed, PsycInfo, Embase, and CINAHL for randomized clinical trials (RCTs) of palliative care interventions. RCTs were included if they enrolled adults with life-limiting illnesses or their caregivers, reported data on psychological distress at 3 months after study intake, and if authors had described the intervention as "palliative care."ResultsWe identified 38 RCTs meeting our inclusion criteria. Many (14/38) included studies excluded participants with common mental health conditions. There were no statistically significant improvements in patient or caregiver anxiety (patient SMD: -0.008, P = 0.96; caregiver SMD: -0.21, P = 0.79), depression (patient SMD: -0.13, P = 0.25; caregiver SMD -0.27, P = 0.08), or psychological distress (patient SMD: 0.26, P = 0.59; caregiver SMD: 0.04, P = 0.78).ConclusionsPsychological distress is not likely to be reduced in the context of a typical palliative care intervention. The systemic exclusion of patients with common mental health conditions in more than 1/3 of the studies raises ethical questions about the goals of palliative care RCTS and could perpetuate inequalities.Copyright © 2023 American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Notes
Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
- Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as
*italics*
,_underline_
or**bold**
. - Superscript can be denoted by
<sup>text</sup>
and subscript<sub>text</sub>
. - Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines
1. 2. 3.
, hyphens-
or asterisks*
. - Links can be included with:
[my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
- Images can be included with:
![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
- For footnotes use
[^1](This is a footnote.)
inline. - Or use an inline reference
[^1]
to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document[^1]: This is a long footnote.
.