Journal of pain and symptom management
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Oct 2019
Development of a Pediatric Palliative Care Curriculum and Dissemination Model: Education in Palliative and End-of-Life Care (EPEC) Pediatrics.
Most children living and dying with serious illnesses experience high burden of distressing symptoms. Many seriously ill children and their families do not have access to subspecialist pediatric palliative care (PPC) services nor to clinicians trained in primary PPC. Lack of PPC education appears to be a significant barrier to PPC implementation. ⋯ EPEC-Pediatrics has developed into the most comprehensive PPC curriculum worldwide. It is highly adaptable for local settings, became self-sustaining and six conferences are offered around the world in 2019.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Oct 2019
Courses of change in good emotional preparedness for death and accurate prognostic awareness and their associations with psychological distress and quality of life in terminally ill cancer patients' last year of life.
Emotional preparedness for death is a distinct but related concept to prognostic awareness (PA). Both allow patients to prepare psychologically and interpersonally for death, but they have primarily been examined in cross-sectional studies. ⋯ Good emotional preparedness for death and accurate PA remained largely stable and improved substantially, respectively, in cancer patients' last year. Both measures were significantly associated with psychological distress. Health care professionals should not only cultivate accurate PA but also promote cancer patients' emotional preparedness for death, which may improve their psychological well-being.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Oct 2019
Use of auditing and feedback in an outpatient hospice setting: Quality and pharmacoeconomic oversight.
Clinicians play an important role in containing pharmaceutical spending at the patient level, as well as ensuring efficacy and quality outcomes, yet little research has examined how to achieve this goal. ⋯ An active, hospice P&T Committee featuring A&F can significantly affect medication costs for a hospice program while maintaining or improving patient outcomes.