Palliative medicine
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Palliative medicine · Jun 2017
Estimating the need for palliative care at the population level: A cross-national study in 12 countries.
To implement the appropriate services and develop adequate interventions, detailed estimates of the needs for palliative care in the population are needed. ⋯ These estimations of the size of the population potentially in need of palliative care provide robust indications of the challenge countries are facing if they want to seriously address palliative care needs at the population level.
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Palliative medicine · Jun 2017
Issues using linkage of hospital records and death certificate data to determine the size of a potential palliative care population.
Studies aiming to identify palliative care populations have used data from death certificates and in some cases hospital records. The size and characteristics of the identified populations can show considerable variation depending on the data sources used. It is important that service planners and researchers are aware of this. ⋯ Health service planners and researchers need to be aware of the limitations when using hospital records and death certificate data to determine a potential palliative care population. The use of Emergency Department and other administrative data sources could further exacerbate this variation.
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Palliative medicine · Jun 2017
Palliative care education for medical students: Differences in course evolution, organisation, evaluation and funding: A survey of all UK medical schools.
A proportion of newly qualified doctors report feeling unprepared to manage patients with palliative care and end-of-life needs. This may be related to barriers within their institution during undergraduate training. Information is limited regarding the current organisation of palliative care teaching across UK medical schools. ⋯ Development, organisation, course evaluation and funding for palliative care teaching at UK medical schools are variable. This may have implications for delivery of effective palliative care education for medical students.
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Palliative medicine · Jun 2017
ReviewAssessment of the wish to hasten death in patients with advanced disease: A systematic review of measurement instruments.
Patients with advanced conditions may present a wish to hasten death. Assessing this wish is complex due to the nature of the phenomenon and the difficulty of conceptualising it. ⋯ This systematic review has analysed existing instruments for assessing the wish to hasten death. It has also explored the methodological quality of studies that have examined the measurement properties of these instruments and offers ratings of the reported properties. These results will be useful to clinicians and researchers with an interest in a phenomenon of considerable relevance to advanced patients.