Journal of pain and symptom management
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Aug 2021
End-of-life care in the time of COVID-19: Communication matters more than ever.
The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in visitation restrictions across most health care settings, necessitating the use of remote communication to facilitate communication among families, patients and health care teams. ⋯ Effective remote communication with the patient and the health care team was associated with significantly better ratings of the overall experience of end-of-life care by bereaved family members. Our findings offer timely insights into the importance of remote communication strategies.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Aug 2021
Feasibility of Safe Opioid Prescribing in Outpatient Palliative Care: A Quality Improvement Project.
No guidelines for safe opioid prescribing in palliative care exist, which contributes to limited monitoring of opioid misuse in palliative care. ⋯ Safe opioid prescribing measures are feasible in outpatient palliative care and can facilitate identification of individuals at risk for opioid misuse and prompt early interventions for misuse.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Aug 2021
ReviewA scoping review of end-of-life communication in international palliative care guidelines for acute care settings.
End-of-life communication in acute care settings can be challenging and many patients and families have reported low satisfaction with those conversations. ⋯ Palliative and end-of-life guidelines applicable to acute care settings outline the purpose of end-of-life communication and address how, when, and by whom such conversations are best initiated and facilitated. How guidelines are developed and what aspects of communications are included and emphasized may differ across countries related to role differences of physicians and nurses and national laws and regulations.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Aug 2021
"I wish I could die so I would not be in pain" - a qualitative study of palliative care needs among people with cancer or HIV/AIDS in Vietnam and their caregivers.
Although cancer and HIV/AIDS are common causes of death in Vietnam, limited data exist on their palliative care needs. As palliative care becomes part of Universal Health Coverage, evidence is needed to scale up appropriate care. ⋯ The findings demonstrate common, multidimensional, and severe suffering among people living with cancer or HIV/AIDS and their caregivers in Vietnam. These qualitative data should guide development of optimum clinical assessment tools and palliative care services for these populations.