Palliative medicine
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Palliative medicine · May 2022
Engagement of specialized palliative care services with the general public: A population-level survey in three European countries.
There is growing recognition of a need for community capacity development around serious illness, dying and loss, complementary to strategies focussing on health services. Hitherto, little is known about how and to what extent palliative care services in different countries are adopting these ideas in their practices. ⋯ An expansion of the mandate of specialized palliative care services beyond a traditional clinically-oriented focus towards one inclusive of community capacity building around serious illness, dying and loss is occurring in different countries, albeit to different degrees and with different intensities.
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Palliative medicine · May 2022
The development of the ADO-SQ model to predict 1-year mortality in patients with COPD.
Goals of end-of-life care must be adapted to the needs of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) who are in the last phase of life. However, identification of those patients is limited by moderate performances of existing prognostic models and by limited validation of the often-recommended surprise question. ⋯ The ADO-SQ model offers improved discriminative performance for predicting 1-year mortality compared to the surprise question, ADO, BODEX, or CODEX. A user-friendly nomogram and web application (https://dnieboer.shinyapps.io/copd) were developed. Further external validation of the ADO-SQ in patient groups is needed.
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Palliative medicine · Apr 2022
ReviewExistential suffering in the day to day lives of those living with palliative care needs arising from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD): A systematic integrative literature review.
The impact of living with palliative care needs arising from COPD disrupts an individual's existential situation. However, no comprehensive synthesis of existing research has been published to determine the presentation and impact of existential suffering. ⋯ This review suggests existential suffering is present and of significant impact within the daily lives of those living with palliative care needs arising from COPD. The absence of life meaning has the most significant impact. Further research is required to understand the essential components of an intervention to address existential suffering for this patient group, to ensure holistic palliative care delivery.
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Palliative medicine · Apr 2022
Civic engagement in serious illness, death, and loss: A systematic mixed-methods review.
New public health approaches to palliative care such as compassionate communities aim to increase capacity in serious illness, death, and loss by involving civic society. Civic engagement has been described in many domains of health; a description of the characteristics, processes, and impact of the initiatives in palliative care is lacking. ⋯ This is the first review to systematically describe and compare reported civic engagement initiatives in the domain of palliative care. Future studies would benefit from improved evaluation of impact and sustainability.