Journal of pain and symptom management
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Feb 1995
ReviewPsychosocial issues in palliative care: the patient, the family, and the process and outcome of care.
This article presents a synopsis of the psychosocial needs of patients and families in the terminal phase of malignant disease, as well as approaches to auditing the care of these clients. Recommendations for future research from the National Cancer Institute of Canada Workshop on Symptom Control and Supportive Care in Patients with Advanced Cancer are presented. These include recommendations on the need for more effective tools to measure the symptoms and burden of illness; an improved taxonomy to describe terminal illness; and studies to (1) measure the impact of interventions for improved symptom relief on the psychosocial distress of patients and families, (2) determine the impact of psychosocial interventions on the symptomatology associated with terminal illness, (3) operationalize "good palliative care" and the optimal delivery of palliative care, (4) assess the auditing of palliative care, (5) develop family typologies of adaptation to terminal illness, (6) describe high risk families, and (7) measure the impact of staff support programs on improving patient/family care.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Feb 1995
Comparative StudyMood states of oncology outpatients: does pain make a difference?
The purposes of this study were to determine if there were significant differences in the mood states of oncology outpatients who had cancer-related pain and those who were pain free, and to evaluate the relationships between pain intensity and duration and mood states in those patients with pain. Two hundred (54.2%) patients experienced cancer-related pain during the previous month and 169 (45.8%) patients were pain free. ⋯ Also, depression, fatigue, confusion, and TMD scores were moderately correlated with increasing duration of pain. These data suggest that there is a relationship between pain and mood in oncology outpatients and that health-care professionals need to assess for mood disturbances in this population and develop appropriate treatment strategies.