Journal of pain and symptom management
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Jan 2015
Multicenter StudyPretreatment information on dysphagia: exploring the views of head and neck cancer patients.
Swallowing difficulties (dysphagia) are a common acute and chronic side effect of head and neck cancer (HNC) treatment. Dysphagia is associated with medical concerns such as malnutrition and pulmonary health as well as quality of life outcomes. Providing information on the likely changes to swallowing is an important component of pretreatment preparation. There is little research providing the patients' perspective in this area. ⋯ Patients require information on the impact and prognosis for their swallowing ability. There was a general preference for verbal information, from someone knowledgeable about dysphagia. However, there are also individual preferences for the manner and pace at which this information is delivered. Further research is indicated to explore ways of providing information that is individually tailored to patients' needs and preferences.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Jan 2015
Measuring the quality of dying and death in the pediatric intensive care setting: the clinician PICU-QODD.
In the pediatric intensive care setting, an accurate measure of the dying and death experience holds promise for illuminating how critical care nurses, physicians, and allied psychosocial staff can better manage end-of-life care for the benefit of children and their families, as well as the caregivers. ⋯ The PICU-QODD-20 shows promise as a valid and reliable measure of the quality of dying and death in pediatric intensive care.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Jan 2015
Why people accept opioids: role of general attitudes toward drugs, experience as a bereaved family, information from medical professionals, and personal beliefs regarding a good death.
Many surveys have evaluated patient-related barriers to pain management. ⋯ More than 90% of bereaved families whose relatives were treated with opioid analgesics reported a preference to receive opioid analgesics for the treatment of cancer pain, if necessary, in the future.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Jan 2015
Patterns of community-based opioid prescriptions in people dying of cancer.
Studies of opioid use in cancer patients have been cross-sectional or have focused on mean consumption over a specific time interval. ⋯ Patients dying of cancer require increasing doses of opioids over time; although we cannot distinguish the relative contributions of disease progression and opioid tolerance, age and certain cancers seem related to this phenomenon. Given the potentially prohibitive cost of prospective epidemiological studies, more elaborate clinical administrative databases that include regular pain assessment are necessary to determine optimal opioid use and factors associated with dose increases over time at a population level.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Jan 2015
Multicenter Study Observational StudySymptom burden of cancer patients: validation of the German M. D. Anderson Symptom Inventory: a cross-sectional multicenter study.
Cancer patients frequently suffer from various symptoms often impairing functional status and quality of life. To enable timely supportive care, these symptoms must be assessed adequately with reliable tools. ⋯ The MDASI-German version is a valid tool for measuring patient-reported symptom severity and symptom interference in German cancer patients. It is easily applicable and can be used by German clinicians and researchers for screening and monitoring purposes and the comparison of international data.