Journal of palliative medicine
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To describe experiences of serious illness including concerns, preferences, and perspectives on improving end-of-life (EOL) care in underserved inpatients. ⋯ Providers should consider that difficult life events influence underserved patients' approaches to dying. Attention to patients' specific preferences and palliative care in public hospitals and locations identified as home may improve care for patients who lack social support.
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To adapt the Brief Pain Inventory-Short Form (BPI-SF) to Polish and to evaluate its psychometric properties (validity and reliability) in patients with cancer pain and to use BPI-SF for pain assessment and monitoring of pain treatment. ⋯ The Polish version of BPI-SF is a valid and reliable tool recommended for pain assessment and monitoring of pain treatment in patients with cancer.
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Medical and technological progress allows newborns, children and teenagers suffering from life-limiting and life-threatening illness to survive, but not necessarily to recover. Data on the number of children eligible for pediatric palliative care [PPC] and their needs are useful for health care planning. The main aim of this study was to ascertain the prevalence and the course of children eligible for pediatric palliative care in Italy. ⋯ Our data agree with other international surveys on the prevalence and typology of pediatric patients. The HDR could be useful for the estimation of the cases eligible for pediatric palliative care and for monitoring of deaths in hospital.
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It has frequently been claimed that palliative care (PC) consultation services reduce hospital length of stay (LOS). We review 12 published studies comparing patients receiving PC or similar intervention and patients receiving usual care with regard to average total hospital LOS. None of the six observational studies showed LOS impact. ⋯ Research to date has been handicapped by designs and methods not suitable for detecting an impact on LOS. Only three studies included survivors and decedents and disaggregated them in analysis and interpretation, despite profound differences in the meaning and implications of reduced LOS for survivors and decedents. Recommendations for future studies include conceptualizing, analyzing, and reporting outcomes separately for survivors and decedents; strengthening study design to reduce the likelihood of failing to detect actual LOS impact; using methods that allow for creation of a reasonable comparison group; and addressing the fundamental problem that LOS is both a predictor and criterion variable in observational studies of palliative care consultation services.