Palliative & supportive care
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Palliat Support Care · Mar 2011
Advance care planning discussions in advanced cancer: analysis of dialogues between patients and care planning mediators.
Advance care planning (ACP) provides patients with an opportunity to consider, discuss, and plan their future care with health professionals. Numerous policy documents recommend that ACP should be available to all with life-limiting illness. ⋯ This article reports on the recorded content of ACP discussions. The extent to which patients want to engage in ACP is variable, and support and training are needed for health professionals to initiate such discussions. Our findings do not fully support the current United Kingdom policy of introducing ACP early in life-threatening disease.
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Palliat Support Care · Mar 2011
Refractory suffering: the impact of team dynamics on the interdisciplinary palliative care team.
This qualitative study aimed to describe the skill sets that experienced palliative care clinicians possess when managing refractory suffering. ⋯ The findings of this study highlight the precarious nature of the interdisciplinary team when significant challenges are faced. As a result of witnessing refractory suffering the division and fracturing of teams can easily occur; often team members are completely unaware of its cause. The findings of this study contribute to the limited literature on the nature of refractory suffering from the perspective of the interdisciplinary team.
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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.