Journal of pain and symptom management
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Sep 2021
ReviewThe content, teaching methods and effectiveness of spiritual care training for healthcare professionals: A mixed-methods systematic review.
Spirituality has been demonstrated to play an important role in healthcare, yet many staff feel ill-equipped to deliver spiritual care. Spiritual care training programs have been developed to address this need. ⋯ Positive outcomes following spiritual care training were identified. Further research is needed to identify patient-related outcomes of staff training, and to examine how the benefits of such training can be maintained over time.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Sep 2021
What's Lost in Translation: A Dialogue-based Intervention that Improves Interpreter Confidence in Palliative Care Conversations.
For US patients with limited English proficiency (LEP), diversity of language and culture can create potential health care disparities in discussions of prognosis and goals of care. Although professional medical interpreters are often thought of as language conduits, they are also trained as clarifiers and mediators of cultural barriers between providers, patients and their families. Identifying interpreter challenges in Palliative Care (PC) conversations and brainstorming and rehearsing solutions could improve their confidence interpreting PC encounters and being cultural mediators. ⋯ This dialogue-based intervention eliciting ongoing interpreter challenges, with PC social work facilitation and role-play with PC clinicians in a mutually respectful environment, significantly improved interpreter confidence in partnering with clinicians in PC conversations.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Sep 2021
Global Experiences of Pediatric Palliative Care Teams During the First 6 Months of the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic.
The coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has profoundly impacted the provision of pediatric palliative care (PPC) interventions including goals of care discussions, symptom management, and end-of-life care. ⋯ This original article describes the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on pediatric palliative care clinicians from 59 countries including financial losses, use of virtual communication modalities, and the respondents' distress in provision of comfort at the end of life.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Sep 2021
Combining multiple decedent data sources for a population-based picture of end-of-life health care utilization.
Although health systems need to track utilization and mortality, it can be difficult to obtain reliable information on patients who die outside of the health system. This leads to missing data and introduces the potential for bias. ⋯ We describe a method to supplement EHR data with decedent information across data sources. While additional decedent data improves the accuracy of death data in the health system, patient healthcare utilization is biased towards those who use the health system at the end of life.