Palliative & supportive care
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Palliat Support Care · Sep 2003
Caregiving near the end of life: unmet needs and potential solutions.
A key aspect of the role of clinicians caring for patients in the setting of advanced illness focuses on attending to the needs of informal caregivers during the end-of-life period. The purpose of this study was twofold: (1) to complement and enrich existing quantitative findings regarding caregiver burden near the end of life, and (2) to identify potential solutions to caregivers' unmet needs in an effort to assist clinicians in the development of clinical interventions. ⋯ Results suggest caregivers may benefit from more information about patient prognosis and hospice, attention to quality-of-life issues, and enhanced, direct communication with clinicians. Although information of this nature is likely to be known to palliative care clinicians, the specific details and verbal insights provided by caregivers give an important voice to existing quantitative data and may provide more detailed information to assist palliative care clinicians seeking to develop interventions to meet caregiver needs during the period near the end of life.
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Palliat Support Care · Sep 2003
Oregon hospice nurses and social workers' assessment of physician progress in palliative care over the past 5 years.
The 1997 enactment of the Oregon Death with Dignity Act intensified interest in improving physician education and skills in caring for patients at the end of life. ⋯ Most respondents rated Oregon physicians as showing improvements in knowledge and willingness to refer and care for hospice patients.