Journal of pain and symptom management
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Jul 2020
Grief During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Considerations for Palliative Care Providers.
The COVID-19 pandemic is anticipated to continue spreading widely across the globe throughout 2020. To mitigate the devastating impact of COVID-19, social distancing and visitor restrictions in health care facilities have been widely implemented. ⋯ Furthermore, we provide discussion regarding countering this grief through communication, advance care planning, and self-care practices. We provide resources for health care providers, in addition to calling on palliative care providers to consider their own role as a resource to other specialties during this public health emergency.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Jul 2020
Spiritual care, pain reduction and preferred place of death among advanced cancer patients in Soweto, South Africa.
When religious and spiritual (R/S) care needs of patients with advanced disease are met, their quality of life (QoL) improves. We studied the association between R/S support and QoL of patients with cancer at the end of life in Soweto, South Africa. ⋯ Patients with cancer have R/S needs. R/S care among our patients appeared to improve their end-of-life experience. More research is needed to determine the mechanisms by which R/S care may have improved the observed patient outcomes.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Jul 2020
Symptom Cluster of ICU nurses treating COVID-19 pneumonia patients in Wuhan, China.
In treating highly infectious coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) pneumonia, intensive care unit (ICU) nurses face a high risk of developing somatic symptom disorder (SSD).The symptom clusters in one population may show overlaps and involvements, a phenomenon that should be deliberately resolved to improve the management efficiency. ⋯ The ICU nurses in Wuhan showed varying and overlapping SSDs. These SSDs could be classified into three symptom clusters. Based on the characteristics of their SSDs, specific interventions could be implemented to safeguard the health of ICU nurses.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Jul 2020
Scaling implementation of the Serious Illness Care Program through Coaching.
We designed group coaching calls to reinforce communication skill acquisition and Serious Illness Care Program uptake in adult primary care. ⋯ Group coaching of PCPs resulted in more than a twofold increase in documented serious illness conversations.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Jul 2020
The Empathy Project: A Skills Development Game: Innovations in Empathy Development.
Empathy is increasingly described as a learnable skill and is included in professionalism requirements for health care providers, yet there are few effective tools for developing and practicing empathy skills. ⋯ This innovative game-based learning tool is of low cost and feasible to deploy. It could be easily incorporated into medical education curricula aimed at developing communication skills, especially the skill of responding to emotion with empathy. Future research is needed to assess the effects the innovation has on behavior as well as its impact on patient-centered outcomes.