Journal of palliative medicine
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Advancing the science of end-of-life care requires a foundation of clear domains and variables to guide research and clinical practice. Palliative care and hospice programs have grown rapidly in recent years in response to an increasing proportion of the population living with chronic, debilitating, and life-threatening illness. ⋯ This paper reviews and compares several models that have proposed domains of end-of-life care and then applies the domains of the NCP Clinical Practice Guidelines as a framework to identify potential outcome variables for research. Having definitions and concepts shared by scientists in end-of-life care can advance the science and provide an evidence base for practice to improve quality care.
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A 1997 Institute of Medicine report cited growing public concern about the quality of care in the U. S. health care system for persons at the end of life. The National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR), the lead Institute at the National Institutes of Health for end-of-life research, has conducted a number of public forums to gather information and to assist in identifying research priorities. ⋯ In December 2004, NINR and the NIH Office of Medical Applications of Research, along with many co-sponsors, held an interdisciplinary State-of-the-Science Conference on Improving End-of-Life Care. The conference panel identified many gaps in our current state of knowledge and provided suggestions for future research directions. This supplement presents papers from a distinguished group of scientists with a wide range of backgrounds who participated in this state-of-the-science conference.