BMC palliative care
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BMC palliative care · Feb 2018
Impact of the Macmillan specialist Care at Home service: a mixed methods evaluation across six sites.
The Midhurst Macmillan Specialist Palliative Care at Home Service was founded in 2006 to improve community-based palliative care provision. Principal components include; early referral; home-based clinical interventions; close partnership working; and flexible teamwork. Following a successful introduction, the model was implemented in six further sites across England. This article reports a mixed methods evaluation of the implementation across these 'Innovation Centres'. The evaluation aimed to assess the process and impact on staff, patients and carers of providing Macmillan Specialist Care at Home services across the six sites. ⋯ Macmillan Specialist Care at Home increases patient choice about place of death and enhances the quality of end of life experience. Clarification of key components is advocated to aid consistency of implementation across different sites and support future evaluative work.
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BMC palliative care · Feb 2018
Palliative care specialists' perceptions concerning referral of haematology patients to their services: findings from a qualitative study.
Haematological malignancies (leukaemias, lymphomas and myeloma) are complex cancers that are relatively common, affect all ages and have divergent outcomes. Although the symptom burden of these diseases is comparable to other cancers, patients do not access specialist palliative care (SPC) services as often as those with other cancers. To determine the reasons for this, we asked SPC practitioners about their perspectives regarding the barriers and facilitators influencing haematology patient referrals. ⋯ This is the first UK study to explore SPC practitioners' perceptions concerning haematology patient referrals. Numerous factors were found to influence the likelihood of referral, some of which related to the organisation and delivery of SPC services, so were amenable to change, and others relating to the complex and unique characteristics and pathways of haematological cancers. Further research is needed to assess the extent to which palliative care is provided by haematology doctors and nurses and other generalists and ways in which clinical uncertainty could be used as a trigger, rather than a barrier, to referral.
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BMC palliative care · Feb 2018
Observational StudyThe Rotterdam Elderly Pain Observation Scale (REPOS) is reliable and valid for non-communicative end-of-life patients.
In palliative care, administration of opioids is often indispensable for pain treatment. Pain assessment may help recognize pain and guide treatment in non-communicative patients. In the Netherlands the Rotterdam Elderly Pain Observation Scale (REPOS) is recommended to this aim, but not yet validated. Therefore the objective of this study was to validate the REPOS in non-communicative or unconscious end-of-life patients. ⋯ This study demonstrates that the REPOS has promising psychometric properties for pain assessment in non-communicative end-of-life patients. Its application may be of additional value to relieve suffering, including pain, in palliative care.
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BMC palliative care · Feb 2018
ReviewPatient's and health care provider's perspectives on music therapy in palliative care - an integrative review.
The use of music as therapy in multidisciplinary end-of-life care dates back to the 1970s and nowadays music therapy (MT) is one of the most frequently used complementary therapy in in-patient palliative care in the US. However existing research investigated music therapy's potential impact mainly from one perspective, referring to either a quantitative or qualitative paradigm. The aim of this review is to provide an overview of the users' and providers' perspectives on music therapy in palliative care within one research article. ⋯ Both quantitative as well as qualitative research showed positive changes in psycho-physiological well-being. The integration of the users´ and providers´ perspectives within future research applicable for example in mixed-methods designs is recommended.
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BMC palliative care · Feb 2018
Systematic development and adjustment of the German version of the Supportive and Palliative Care Indicators Tool (SPICT-DE).
The Supportive and Palliative Care Indicators tool (SPICT) supports the identification of patients with potential palliative care (PC) needs. An Austrian-German expert group translated SPICT into German (SPICT-DE) in 2014. The aim of this study was the systematic development, refinement, and testing of SPICT-DE for its application in primary care (general practice). ⋯ SPICT-DE supports the identification of patients who might benefit from PC and seems suitable for routine application in general practice in Germany. The systematic development, refinement, and testing of SPICT-DE in this study was successfully completed by using a multiprofessional and participatory approach.