Journal of palliative medicine
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Chronic breathlessness is a daily experience for millions of people, despite current therapies. The objective of this study was to find out to what people attributed their breathlessness irrespective of health service utilization, and to understand the demographic characteristics in each diagnostic group. ⋯ Breathlessness is widely encountered. The burden in prevalence and duration generated by lung disease greatly surpasses other causes. This underlines the need to intensify efforts to minimize the causes of chronic lung disease, and to more actively palliate the subjective symptom of chronic breathlessness.
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Hospice and palliative care providers need ways to measure and improve care processes. We tested feasibility, usability, reliability, and validity of Prepare, Embrace, Attend, Communicate, Empower (PEACE) quality measures for palliative care. ⋯ PEACE quality measures are feasible and reliable, and may be useful to examine and improve the quality of palliative care for seriously ill hospitalized patients as well as for patients in hospice. Research is needed to test measures for actionability and responsiveness to intervention.