Journal of palliative medicine
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Shortened quality-of-life (QOL) tools are advantageous in palliative care patients. Development of such tools begins with the identification of issues relevant to a population. The purpose of this study was to identify the most important items of the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Palliative Care (FACIT-Pal) to create an abbreviated questionnaire for future palliative care trials. ⋯ The FACIT-Pal-14, a shortened 14-item questionnaire has been generated for the palliative care population. Future studies should complete psychometric validation of this instrument for the assessment of QOL in palliative care patients.
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To date there has been a paucity of research examining whether a course in palliative care influences the clinical work. Therefore a half-day course was started for different professionals. ⋯ The course was appreciated and useful in the professionals' work, but it also created problems.