Journal of palliative medicine
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Background: The lack of consumer knowledge and misconception of services could impede requests for and acceptance of palliative care. YouTube has been widely used for health information dissemination. Objective: To explore the availability and characteristics of palliative care educational videos on YouTube and determine how palliative care is portrayed in these videos. Methods: Keyword search and snowball methods were used to identify palliative care videos on YouTube. A structured data collection protocol was developed to record characteristics of a video. ⋯ Compared with videos uploaded by health care agencies, those uploaded by advocacy organizations had 6.41 times higher odds of having more than one view per day (p = 0.002). Conclusion: Online videos may not provide accurate and appropriate information on palliative care. There is minimal ethnic diversity in terms of physician and family representation. More research is needed to determine the effectiveness of these videos in improving consumer knowledge of palliative care.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Feasibility of Implementing a Palliative Care Intervention for People with Heart Failure: Learnings from a Pilot Randomized Clinical Trial.
Background: People with heart failure (HF) have high morbidity and mortality and may benefit from palliative care (PC). Objective: To pilot a randomized, clinical trial of a PC intervention for people with HF. Design: Participants were randomized to usual care (UC) or intervention (UC plus specialty PC) between January 2012 and December 2013. The initial PC consultation was conducted in-hospital, with six additional contacts from the PC team over six months. Setting/Subjects: The study was undertaken in a large, urban, academic medical center with patients (n = 30) with New York Heart Association HF Class II-IV. Measurements: Patients completed a survey at baseline, three and six months, assessing pain, dyspnea, depression, and quality of life (QoL). Results: Although there were significant improvements in mean scores from baseline to six months for pain (4.3 vs. 2.4, p = 0.05), dyspnea (3.9 vs. 2.2, p = 0.03), and QoL (59.2 vs. 42.7, p = 0.001), there were no differences between study groups over time. ⋯ Given the trajectory of HF, studies may need to recruit outpatients and follow patients for a longer period to fully evaluate the impact of PC interventions. Clinical trials Identifier: NCT01461681.