Journal of palliative medicine
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To implement and evaluate a quality improvement program of interdisciplinary palliative care education and support intended to increase the competence, confidence and ability to manage personal grief of health care professionals caring for dying children. ⋯ A program of interdisciplinary interventions can successfully educate and support health care professionals in providing palliative and end-of-life care for children. This program model can be applied in diverse pediatric health care settings.
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As part of a comprehensive national effort to improve care at the end of life, the Promoting Excellence in End-of-Life Care program of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation convened "national peer-professional workgroups" of recognized authorities or leaders to advance palliative aspects of practice in their respective specialties or fields. ⋯ The national peer-professional workgroup model exceeded original expectations and produced well-considered Recommendations to the Field as well as a body of resources for professionals in expanding access to and quality of palliative care. Results of this experimental venture in professional change suggest that the workgroup model may be a useful, cost-effective, rapid-change strategy for quality improvement in other areas of professional practice and service delivery.
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For patients confronting a life-threatening illness such as advanced cancer, religious coping can be an important factor influencing their quality of life (QOL). ⋯ Findings show that religious coping plays an important role for the QOL of patients and the types of religious coping strategies used are related to better or poorer QOL.
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Multicenter Study
Preparedness for the death of a loved one and mental health in bereaved caregivers of patients with dementia: findings from the REACH study.
Although it has been suggested that family and friends who are prepared for the death of a loved one have less distress, the relationship between preparedness and bereavement mental health is inconclusive. ⋯ Despite providing high-intensity care, often for years, many bereaved caregivers perceived themselves as unprepared for the death. These caregivers had more depression, anxiety, and complicated grief symptoms. Future work should be directed to confirming these findings and determining how best to intervene with high-risk caregivers.