Journal of pain and symptom management
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Jul 2008
Controlled Clinical TrialDoes palliative care improve quality? A survey of bereaved family members.
Palliative care is the interdisciplinary specialty that aims to relieve suffering and improve the quality of care for patients with serious illness and their families. Although palliative care programs are becoming increasingly prevalent in U. S. hospitals, the impact of hospital palliative care consultation programs on the quality of care received by family members is not well understood. ⋯ Sixty-seven percent of palliative care patients' family members reported confidence in one or more self-efficacy domains, as compared to 44% of usual care patients' family members (P=0.03). Our study shows that palliative care consultation is associated with improved satisfaction, with attention to family and enhanced self-efficacy. Palliative care offers a unique approach by integrating the needs of the family into the care of the patient.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Jul 2008
Supporting patients and their caregivers after-hours at the end of life: the role of telephone support.
Twenty-four hour access is accepted as a gold standard for palliative care service delivery, yet minimal data exist to justify the cost of this initiative to health care planners and policy makers. Further, there is scant information concerning optimal and efficient methods for delivering after-hours palliative care advice and support, particularly in regional and rural settings. This article reports on an evaluation of a local after-hours telephone support service in regional Australia. ⋯ This experience demonstrates proof of concept that acceptable palliative care advice can be provided by generalist nurses in a cost-efficient manner. Common patterns emerged in utilization that can assist in service planning and staffing formulae. There is also a need to investigate mechanisms of interfacing with larger scale call centers, to explore the differences within generic and disease-specific approaches, and assess the appropriateness of after-hours telephone support with different cultural groups.