Palliative medicine
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Palliative medicine · Dec 2023
'Thank goodness you're here'. Exploring the impact on patients, family carers and staff of enhanced 7-day specialist palliative care services: A mixed methods study.
Healthcare usage patterns change for people with life limiting illness as death approaches, with increasing use of out-of-hours services. How best to provide care out of hours is unclear. ⋯ Enhanced seven-day services provide high quality integrated palliative care, with positive experiences for patients, carers and staff.
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Palliative medicine · Dec 2023
Achieving consensus on priority items for paediatric palliative care outcome measurement: Results from a modified Delphi survey, engagement with a children's research involvement group and expert item generation.
There is no validated outcome measure for use in children's palliative care outside sub-Saharan Africa. Stakeholders must be involved in the development of such measures to ensure face and content validity. ⋯ This study highlights the importance and feasibility of involving key stakeholders in PROM item generation, as important differences were found in the priority outcomes identified by children, parents and professionals.
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Palliative medicine · Dec 2023
A grounded theory of interdependence between specialist and generalist palliative care teams across healthcare settings.
Individuals with palliative care needs face increased risk of discontinuity of care as they navigate between healthcare settings, locations and practitioners which can result in poor outcomes. Little is known about interactions that occur between specialist and generalist palliative care teams as patients are transition from hospital to community-based care after hospitalisation. ⋯ Teams need to explicitly consider and agree their mode of functioning, and enact changes to enhance knowledge of the team, intentional communication and valuing other teams' contributions. Future research is needed to test or expand this theory across a range of cultures and contexts.
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Palliative medicine · Dec 2023
Observational StudyThe financial costs of anticipatory prescribing: A retrospective observational study of prescribed, administered and wasted medications using community clinical records.
The prescribing of injectable end-of-life anticipatory medications ahead of possible need is recommended best practice. The financial costs of these medications have been little studied. ⋯ The costs of prescribed and unused anticipatory medications were higher than previously reported but remain modest. Usage of prescriptions was lower than previously documented. There may be scope to reduce the quantity of vials that are routinely prescribed without adversely affecting care; further research is needed to investigate this possibility.