Palliative medicine
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Palliative medicine · Jul 2016
'The ICECAP-SCM tells you more about what I'm going through': A think-aloud study measuring quality of life among patients receiving supportive and palliative care.
The ICECAP-Supportive Care Measure is a self-complete questionnaire developed to aid economic evaluation of supportive care interventions. ⋯ The ICECAP-Supportive Care Measure is feasible to use and perceived as appropriate for evaluating palliative care interventions. Healthcare professionals with limited knowledge of the patient who act as proxy completers may find the measure difficult to complete.
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Palliative medicine · Jul 2016
A service evaluation of an integrated model of palliative care of cystic fibrosis.
Patients with advanced cystic fibrosis have severe symptoms with a complex trajectory of exacerbations and recovery. They are often awaiting lung transplantation, and many die without receiving specialist palliative care. ⋯ This model has been successful in overcoming the difficulties in access to specialist palliative care for patients with cystic fibrosis.
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Palliative medicine · Jul 2016
'I think you just learnt as you went along' - community clergy's experiences of and attitudes towards caring for dying people: A pilot study.
Spiritual distress is a factor associated with poor outcomes at the end of life. Timely interventions, assessing and meeting spiritual distress, among patients are contained within nationally agreed guidance. Community clergy are well placed to work alongside healthcare professionals and chaplains to meet spiritual needs. ⋯ Creating opportunities for clergy and palliative care staff to meet and undertake shared training will enhance the quality and level of care for people dying at home who wish to receive spiritual support. Enabling clergy to develop links with local palliative care centres will enhance confidence for both clergy and staff.
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Palliative medicine · Jul 2016
Preferences regarding disclosure of prognosis and end-of-life care: A survey of cancer patients with advanced disease in a lower-middle-income country.
Cancer patients' preferences regarding disclosure of prognosis and end-of-life care remain under-reported from low- and middle-income countries where cancer poses an increasing demand on scarce healthcare resources. A better knowledge of these preferences can help in achievement of shared treatment goals. ⋯ A majority of adult cancer patients surveyed in this study wanted a truthful disclosure about their disease prognosis and expressed a preference for hospital-based care at end-of-life. Healthcare providers should find ways to tailor prognostic information to patients' expressed information needs.
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Palliative medicine · Jul 2016
'Because it's the wife who has to look after the man': A descriptive qualitative study of older women and the intersection of gender and the provision of family caregiving at the end of life.
Research indicates that women are the primary family caregivers for others at life's end and, because of ageing populations, will keep fulfilling this role as they age. Yet, little is known about how the gendered nature of caregiving contributes to older women's understandings of providing care. ⋯ The expectation that older women will provide end-of-life care even when experiencing considerable burden is an unacknowledged outcome of gender norms that construct women as caregivers.