Journal of pain and symptom management
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Oct 2022
Admission Code Status and End-of-life Care for Hospitalized Patients with COVID-19.
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted variability in intensity of care. We aimed to characterize intensity of care among hospitalized patients with COVID-19. ⋯ In this international cohort of patients with COVID-19, Full Code was the initial code status in the majority, and more likely among patients who were Black or Asian race, Hispanic ethnicity or male. These results provide direction for future studies to improve these disparities in care.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Oct 2022
Inflammatory markers and radiotherapy response in patients with painful bone metastases.
Inflammation is proposed to influence tumor response in radiotherapy (RT). Clinical studies to investigate the relationship between inflammatory markers and RT response is warranted to understand the variable RT efficacy in patients with painful bone metastases. ⋯ Results from this study show an association between RT response and change in pro-inflammatory mediators and indicate that inflammation may be important to achieve an analgesic RT response in patients with painful bone metastases. None of the investigated inflammatory markers were found to be pre-treatment predictors of RT response.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Oct 2022
Awareness and utilization of palliative care among advanced cancer patients in Asia.
To date, little is known about palliative care (PC) awareness and utilization in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in Asia. ⋯ The low awareness of PC services in these major hospitals in Asian LMICs highlights that more effort may be required to promote the awareness of PC in this region. The efforts should especially focus on those from disadvantaged groups to reduce the gap in PC awareness.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Oct 2022
Using Family Narrative Reports to Identify Practices for Improving End-of-Life Care Quality.
Patient experiences should be considered by healthcare systems when implementing care practices to improve quality of end-of-life care. Families and caregivers of recent in-patient decedents may be best positioned to recommend practices for quality improvement. ⋯ Narrative responses from bereaved family members can yield approaches for systematic quality improvement. These approaches can serve as a menu in diverse contexts looking for approaches to improve patient quality of death in in-patient settings.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Oct 2022
Considerations for Fostering Palliative Care Awareness in Developing Contexts: Strategies from Locally Initiated Projects in India.
Lack of palliative care (PC) awareness is a barrier to its utilization in developing contexts. ⋯ To increase palliative care utilization, program development can include community and provider-focused efforts on awareness of the concepts and value of palliative care. These three strategies held salience across sites representing diverse Indian geographic and cultural settings; as such, they may be applicable to other contexts.