• Br J Gen Pract · Feb 2024

    Understanding patient views and experiences of the IDENTIfication of PALLiative care needs (IDENTI-PALL): a qualitative interview study.

    • Isabel Leach, Catriona R Mayland, Nicola Turner, and Sarah Mitchell.
    • Division of Clinical Medicine, School of Medicine and Population Health, University of Sheffield, Sheffield.
    • Br J Gen Pract. 2024 Feb 1; 74 (739): e88e95e88-e95.

    BackgroundPalliative care improves quality of life for people with life-threatening illnesses. There are longstanding inequalities in access to palliative care, with many people never identified as having palliative care needs, particularly frail older people, those with non-malignant disease, and people from ethnic minority backgrounds. Little is known about the process of identification of palliative care needs from a patient perspective.AimTo provide new understanding into patient views and experiences of the process of identification of palliative care needs, and to explore the impact of identification on health care, if any, from a patient perspective.Design And SettingA qualitative interview study undertaken with patients and family carers in a major UK city.MethodSemi-structured interviews were carried out with patients (and/or family carers) identified as being on general practice palliative care registers. An inductive thematic analysis was conducted to explore the data.ResultsEleven participants were recruited: eight patients and three family carers. The following three interrelated themes were identified: 1) misconceptions about palliative care and unshared prognostic uncertainty hinder the identification of palliative care needs; 2) a compassionate, timely approach is required for identification of palliative care needs, with or without an identification tool; and 3) identification of palliative care needs is beneficial where it leads to proactive holistic care.ConclusionA compassionate approach, sharing of prognostic uncertainty, and proactive primary care are key to timely, beneficial identification of palliative care needs. Future policy should ensure that identification is an adaptable, personalised process to meet the individual needs of people with advanced serious illnesses.© The Authors.

      Pubmed     Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    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..

    hide…