BMC palliative care
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BMC palliative care · Mar 2016
A qualitative evaluation of the impact of a palliative care course on preregistration nursing students' practice in Cameroon.
Current evidence suggests that palliative care education can improve preregistration nursing students' competencies in palliative care. However, it is not known whether these competencies are translated into students' practice in the care of patients who are approaching the end of life. This paper seeks to contribute to the palliative care evidence base by examining how nursing students in receipt of education report transfer of learning to practice, and what the barriers and facilitators may be, in a resource-poor country. ⋯ The findings from this study suggest that nursing student in receipt of palliative care education can use their learning in practice to provide care to patients and their families approaching the end of life. Nevertheless, these findings need to be treated with some caution given the self-reported nature of the data. Demonstrating the link between preregistration palliative care education and patient care is vital to ensuring that newly acquired knowledge and skills are translated and embedded into clinical practice. This study also has implications for advocating for palliative care policies and adequately preparing clinical placement sites for students' learning and transfer of learning.
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BMC palliative care · Mar 2016
Developing research priorities for palliative care of people with intellectual disabilities in Europe: a consultation process using nominal group technique.
Empirical knowledge around palliative care provision and needs of people with intellectual disabilities is extremely limited, as is the availability of research resources, including expertise and funding. This paper describes a consultation process that sought to develop an agenda for research priorities for palliative care of people with intellectual disabilities in Europe. ⋯ The proposal of four major priority areas and a range of minor themes for future research in intellectual disability, death, dying and palliative care will help researchers to focus limited resources and research expertise on areas where it is most needed and support the building of collaborations. The next steps are to cross-validate these research priorities with people with intellectual disabilities, carers, clinicians, researchers and other stakeholders across Europe; to validate them with local and national policy makers to determine how they could best be incorporated in policy and programmes; and to translate them into actual research studies by setting up European collaborations for specific studies that require such collaboration, develop research proposals and attract research funding.
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BMC palliative care · Mar 2016
HOLD study (Home care Obstructive Lung Disease): natural history of patients with advanced COPD.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the fourth cause of death in western countries. Its final stage has clearly been forgotten by medical research in recent years. There exists consensus regarding the need to integrate palliative care in assisting these patients, but the difficulty in establishing a prognosis for the disease, establishing limits for life support measures, the lack of information about the disease's natural course and ignorance as to the most effective health-care structure for these patients' palliative treatment may be responsible for their late inclusion or non-inclusion in specific programmes. The main purpose of this work is to find out the natural background of patients with stage IV COPD and the main prognostic factors that influence these patients' survival. ⋯ The HOLD study is a project aimed at finding out the prognostic factors and evolution of the disease COPD in its most advanced stage. The final goal is to improve the health and quality of life, in a personalised, integral way up to end of life and explore and foster communication with patients, as well as their participation and collaboration in decision-taking. The HOLD study can help us better understand what these patients' real palliative and care needs are, in order to more efficiently organise their treatment at end of life.
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BMC palliative care · Mar 2016
An exploration of contextual dimensions impacting goals of care conversations in postgraduate medical education.
Postgraduate medical trainees are not well prepared difficult conversations about goals of care with patients and families in the acute care clinical setting. While contextual nuances within the workplace can impact communication, research to date has largely focused on individual communication skills. Our objective was to explore contextual factors that influence conversations between trainees and patients/families about goals of care in the acute care setting. ⋯ Contextual factors impact how postgraduate medical trainees communicate with patients/families about goals of care. Attention to individual, interpersonal and system-related factors will be important in designing educational programs that help trainees develop the capacities needed for challenging conversations.
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BMC palliative care · Mar 2016
Context, mechanisms and outcomes in end of life care for people with advanced dementia.
The majority of people with dementia in the UK die in care homes. The quality of end of life care in these environments is often suboptimal. The aim of the present study was to explore the context, mechanisms and outcomes for providing good palliative care to people with advanced dementia residing in UK care homes from the perspective of health and social care providers. ⋯ Contextual factors regarding the care home environment may be obdurate and tend to negatively impact on the quality of end of life dementia care. Local level mechanisms may be more amenable to improvement. However, systemic changes to the care home environment are necessary to promote consistent, equitable and sustainable high quality end of life dementia care across the UK care home sector.