Palliative & supportive care
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Palliat Support Care · Dec 2010
The spirit of palliative practice: a qualitative inquiry into the spiritual journey of palliative care physicians.
Much is known about the important role of spirituality in the delivery of multidimensional care for patients at the end of life. Establishing a strong physician-patient relationship in a palliative context requires physicians to have the self-awareness essential to establishing shared meaning and relationships with their patients. However, little is known about this phenomenon and therefore, this study seeks a greater understanding of physician spirituality and how caring for the terminally ill influences this inner aspect. ⋯ With spirituality as a pervasive force not only in the lives of palliative care patients, but also in those of healthcare providers, it may prove to be beneficial to use this information to guide future practice in training and education for palliative physicians in both the spiritual care of patients and in practitioner self care.
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Palliat Support Care · Dec 2010
Comparative StudyComparison of experienced burnout symptoms in specialist oncology nurses working in hospital oncology units or in hospices.
This study aimed to clarify the differential contributions of situational and individual factors to burnout symptoms experienced by two independent groups of specialist oncology nurses working in oncology hospital units or in hospices. ⋯ These findings help to clarify the differential contributions of institutional and individual factors to burnout symptoms in specialist oncology nurses, and corroborate the need for interventions to contain nurses' burnout symptoms.
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Palliat Support Care · Dec 2010
Impact on caregiver burden of a patient-focused palliative care intervention for patients with advanced cancer.
Caregivers of patients with advanced cancer experience physical and emotional strain that can raise their own risk for morbidity and mortality. This analysis was performed to determine whether ENABLE II, a patient-focused palliative care intervention that increased patients' quality of life, reduced symptom intensity, and lowered depressed mood compared to usual care, would affect caregiver burden. ⋯ The results indicate that a successful patient-focused intervention did not have a similar beneficial effect on caregiver burden. Future interventions should focus on caregivers as well as patients, with particular attention to caregivers' perceptions of patient care, and seek to change both negative and positive effects of informal caregiving.
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Palliat Support Care · Dec 2010
Transforming the mortality review conference to assess palliative care in the acute care setting: a feasibility study.
This project sought to evaluate the impact of a hospital-based Palliative Care Consultation (PCC) service utilizing a common practice: the resident mortality review conference. ⋯ The mortality review process was found to be valuable in assessing care delivery for patients near the end of life. The tool yielded results that were consistent with findings of other studies looking at pain and symptom management, advance care planning, and the rate of palliative care consults across major diagnostic categories, supporting the face validity of the mortality review process.
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Palliat Support Care · Dec 2010
What does care mean? Perceptions of people approaching the end of life.
This project sought to better understand the nature of medical care from the perspective of people approaching the end of life. ⋯ The importance of care was clearly illustrated through descriptions of the benefits of caring behavior and the negative consequences of uncaring behavior. In order to demonstrate the empathy and compassion expected and assumed of medical graduates and engender a feeling of being cared for among their patients, doctors need to invite and develop a relationship with those they are caring for. There needs to be a focus on each member of the caring relationship primarily as individual human beings.