Palliative & supportive care
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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.
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Palliat Support Care · Jun 2003
Family care giving for patients at life's end: report from the cultural variations study (CVAS).
To investigate differences between African American and White family caregivers in self-reported health, use of social support and external resources, and emotional and financial strain in the context of their care of a family member with advanced cancer. ⋯ Caregivers of patients at end of life experience substantial emotional and financial difficulties related to caregiving. Family caregiving is a private undertaking with little use of outside resources to mitigate the burden.
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Palliat Support Care · Mar 2003
ReviewA systematic review of spiritual and religious variables in Palliative Medicine, American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care, Hospice Journal, Journal of Palliative Care, and Journal of Pain and Symptom Management.
There has been increasing recognition and acceptance of the importance of addressing existential and spiritual suffering as an important and necessary component of palliative medicine and end-of-life care in the United States. This paper seeks to. empirically and systematically examine the extent to which there is an adequate scientific research base on spirituality and its role in palliative care, in the palliative care and hospice literature. ⋯ While researchers in the field of palliative care have studied spiritual/religious variables more than other areas of medicine, the total percentage for studies is still a low 6.3%. To move the field of palliative medicine forward so appropriate guidelines for spiritual care can be developed, it is critical that good research be conducted upon which to base spiritual care in an evidence-based model. Recommendations are made for future studies on spiritual care in palliative medicine.
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Palliat Support Care · Mar 2003
Initial validation of a scale to measure purposelessness, understimulation, and boredom in cancer patients: toward a redefinition of depression in advanced disease.
The problem of boredom in people with cancer has received little research attention, and yet clinical experience suggests that it has the potential to profoundly affect quality of life in those patients. We were interested in developing a Purposelessness, Understimulation, and Boredom (PUB) Scale to identify this problem and to begin to differentiate it from depression. ⋯ The PUB Scale was found to be a statistically viable tool with the ability to detect boredom and differentiate it from depression. In many respects this work is in concert with much of the current research and clinical effort going on in psycho-oncology that defines components of distress that in sum, redefines depression in advanced cancer.
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Palliat Support Care · Mar 2003
Comparative StudyA comparison of patients dying at home and patients dying at a hospice: sociodemographic factors and caregivers' experiences.
The aim of this study was to investigate whether there were any differences between patients who died at home and patients who died at a hospice, that is, sociodemographic variables, the family caregivers' experiences of burden, and their opinion of reasons for hospice care. ⋯ This study showed that women died to a lesser degree at home than men. The explanation for this is unknown and requires further investigation. It is important to establish whether female patients or male caregivers need another type of support than male patients or female caregivers, since the aim of palliative care is that every patient who wishes to die at home should have this wish fulfilled.