Journal of pain and symptom management
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Dec 2021
ReviewApproaching the end of their lives under blue lights and sirens - scoping review.
Emergency medical services (EMS) are frequently responding to calls involving patients in advanced stages of incurable diseases. Despite the competencies and potential of EMS in supporting patients and their families facing symptoms of advanced progressive illnesses, the role of EMS in providing palliative care remains unclear. ⋯ There are limited data on the incidence of EMS calls to the patients at the end-of-life and no data focusing on the EMS dispatch centres. Both paramedics and emergency physicians are aware of their role in the end-of-life care. EMS personnel are lacking special training and education in the palliative care. Cooperation between palliative care providers, the EMS providers and other out-of-hours services might improve the responsiveness of the health care system to needs and expectations of patients and their families, and possibly improve the overall health care system efficiency.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Dec 2021
The association of family functioning with possible major depressive disorders and complicated grief among bereaved family members of patients with cancer: Results from the J-HOPE4 study, a nationwide cross-sectional follow-up survey in Japan.: Family function association with depression.
Family functioning is a modifiable factor associated with major depressive disorder (MDD) and complicated grief (CG) among the bereaved families of patients with advanced cancer; however, the evidence regarding this association is limited. ⋯ Family function was affected by post-bereavement possible MDD and not by CG. Our findings suggest that health care providers can identify risk factors for MDD among bereaved, dysfunctional family members.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Dec 2021
Attitudes toward and Perceptions of Educational Needs for End-of-Life Care among Health Professions Students: A Cross-Sectional Study in China.
To provide effective end-of-life care education for health professions students, it is important to understand students' views of death in addition to their perceptions of educational needs and preferences. However, there is a lack of studies addressing interindividual variability in perceptions of end-of-life care educational needs among health professions students. ⋯ Two classes of perceptions of end-of-life care educational needs were identified, and these classes were significantly associated with sex and death-related knowledge (P < 0.05). Interindividual variability should be considered in the future development of end-of-care curricula.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Dec 2021
Efficacy of proportional sedation and deep sedation defined by sedation protocols: A multicenter, prospective, observational comparative study: Protocol-based palliative sedation.
To investigate the efficacy of two types of palliative sedation: proportional and deep sedation, defined by sedation protocols. ⋯ Proportional sedation achieved satisfactory symptom relief while maintaining some patients' consciousness, and deep sedation achieved good symptom relief while the majority of patients lost consciousness.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Dec 2021
Implementing Palliative Care Training in the Caribbean: Development and Assessment of a Basic Palliative Care Training Course in Jamaica.
The majority of people in need of palliative care (PC) in low- and middle-income countries lack access to it and suffer unnecessarily as a consequence. This unmet need is due, in part, to the lack of trained PC providers. ⋯ Overall satisfaction with the course was high, and self-assessed competency in PC improved. These data suggest that an intensive training over several days is an effective format for increasing providers' perceived efficacy in delivering PC.