Journal of pain and symptom management
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Nov 2015
Multicenter Study Observational StudyValidation of the Japanese Version of Edmonton Symptom Assessment System-Revised.
The Edmonton Symptom Assessment System-revised (ESAS-r) is a brief and widely used symptom measurement tool. ⋯ The Japanese version of the ESAS-r is a reliable and valid tool for measuring symptoms in Japanese adult patients with cancer.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Nov 2015
Comparative StudyNursing Home Staff Palliative Care Knowledge and Practices: Results of a Large Survey of Front-Line Workers.
Deficits in quality end-of-life care for nursing home (NH) residents are well known. Palliative care is promoted as an approach to improve quality. The Palliative Care Survey (PCS) is designed to measure NH staff palliative care knowledge and practice. ⋯ Given observed differences in palliative care practice and knowledge scores by staff training, it appears the PCS is a useful tool to assess NH staff. Low end-of-life knowledge scores represent an important target for quality improvement.
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The physician orders for life-sustaining treatment (POLST) paradigm allows health care professionals to document the treatment preferences of patients with advanced illness or frailty as portable and actionable medical orders. National standards encourage offering POLST orders to patients for whom clinicians would not be surprised if they died in the next year. ⋯ More than half of POLST forms were completed in the final two months of life. Cause of death influenced when POLST forms were completed. POLST forms changed in the two years preceding death, more frequently recording fewer life-sustaining treatment orders than the earlier form(s).
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Nov 2015
Increasing the Number of Outpatients Receiving Spiritual Assessment: A Pain and Palliative Care Service Quality Improvement Project.
Spirituality is a patient need that requires special attention from the Pain and Palliative Care Service team. This quality improvement project aimed to provide spiritual assessment for all new outpatients with serious life-altering illnesses. ⋯ Improved spiritual assessment in an outpatient palliative care clinic setting can occur with a multidisciplinary approach. This project also identifies data collection and documentation processes that can be targeted for improvement.