Journal of pain and symptom management
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Aug 2017
Differences in Symptom Clusters Identified Using Ratings of Symptom Occurrence Versus Severity in Lung Cancer Patients Receiving Chemotherapy.
An important question in symptom clusters research is whether the number and types of symptom clusters vary based on the specific dimension of the symptom experience used to create the clusters. ⋯ Identification of symptom clusters in patients with lung cancer may assist with the development of more targeted symptom management interventions. Future studies are warranted to determine if symptom clusters change over a cycle of CTX in patients with lung cancer.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Aug 2017
Effect of psychiatric illness on acute care utilization at end of life from serious medical illness.
Little is known about psychiatric illness and utilization of end-of-life care. ⋯ Our findings differ from the increased hospital utilization for patients with psychiatric illness in circumstances other than end-of-life care. Path analyses confirmed hypothesized associations between psychiatric illness and increased utilization mediated by severity of illness and care fragmentation but identified more powerful direct effects decreasing hospital use. Further investigation should examine whether this effect represents a disparity in access to preferred care.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Aug 2017
Could Objective Tests Be Used to Measure Fatigue in Patients with Advanced Cancer?
Assessment of cancer-related fatigue is currently based on patient-reported outcomes. We asked whether objective assessments, such as muscle strength and nutritional markers, can be used as surrogate measures of cancer-related fatigue. ⋯ Our study showed that subjective assessment of fatigue based on patient-reported outcomes correlates only weakly with muscle strength and nutritional markers; thus, patient-reported outcomes remain the gold standard for fatigue assessment.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Aug 2017
Strategies for enhancing family participation in research in the ICU: Findings from a qualitative study.
Family members of critically ill patients who participate in research focused on palliative care issues have been found to be systematically different from those who do not. These differences threaten the validity of research and raise ethical questions about worsening disparities in care by failing to represent diverse perspectives. ⋯ Family members found their recruitment experiences to be positive when staff were knowledgeable about the ICU, sensitive to the stressful circumstances, and conveyed a caring attitude. By training research staff to be supportive of families' emotional needs and need for logistical knowledge about the ICU, recruitment of a potentially more diverse sample of families may be enhanced.