Journal of palliative medicine
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Observational Study
Associations between Family Satisfaction with End-of-Life Care and Chart-Derived, Process-Based Quality Indicators in Intensive Care Units.
Background/Objective: Evidence linking process-based, high-quality end-of-life (EOL) care indicators to family satisfaction with EOL care in intensive care units (ICUs) remains limited. This study aimed to fill this gap. Design/Setting/Subjects/Measures/Statistical Analysis: For this exploratory, prospective, longitudinal observational study, 278 family members were consecutively recruited from medical ICUs at two medical centers in Taiwan. ⋯ Family members' satisfaction with decision making was positively associated with documentation of social worker involvement (4.767 [0.663 to 8.872]), a DNR order issued (10.499 [0.223 to 20.776]), and withdrawal of life-sustaining treatments (LSTs) before death (2.252 [1.834 to 2.670]). Conclusions: EOL care processes are associated with family satisfaction with EOL care in ICUs. Bereaved family members' satisfaction with EOL care in ICUs may be improved by promoting physician-family prognostic communication and psychosocial support, facilitating a DNR order and death without CPR, and withdrawing LSTs for patients dying in ICUs.
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Background: No reliable instruments exist to measure prognostic awareness and its psychological and behavioral impacts for patients with advanced cancer. Methods: We developed the Prognostic Awareness Impact Scale (PAIS) using a qualitative approach. During phase 1, we convened a working group with a transdisciplinary team of clinicians from oncology (n = 2), psychology (n = 2), psychiatry (n = 1), palliative care (n = 3), and survey development (n = 1) to identify key domains of PAIS. ⋯ We revised the PAIS by (1) replacing binary response options with ordinal agreement scales; and (2) reducing the number of items focused on cognitive understanding of prognosis. Conclusion: We developed a conceptual framework to capture prognostic awareness and its psychological and behavioral impacts for patients with advanced cancer using the PAIS. Future work should focus on validating the PAIS by testing its psychometric properties.