Articles: palliative-care.
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Background: Chaplain-led communication-board-guided spiritual care may reduce anxiety and stress during an intensive care unit (ICU) admission for nonvocal mechanically ventilated patients, but clinical pastoral education does not teach the assistive communication skills needed to provide communication-board-guided spiritual care. Objective: To evaluate a four-hour chaplain-led seminar to educate chaplains about ICU patients' psychoemotional distress, and train them in assistive communication skills for providing chaplain-led communication-board-guided spiritual care. Design: A survey immediately before and after the seminar, and one-year follow-up about use of communication-board-guided spiritual care. ⋯ Self-reported skill and comfort in providing communication-board-guided spiritual care increased from a median (interquartile range) score of 4 (2-6) to 7 (5-8) and 6 (4-8) to 8 (6-9), respectively (both p < 0.001). One year later, 31% of chaplains reported providing communication-board-guided spiritual care in the ICU. Conclusions: A single chaplain-led seminar taught chaplains about ICU patients' psychoemotional distress, trained chaplains in assistive communication skills with nonvocal patients, and led to the use of communication-board-guided spiritual care in the ICU for up to one year later.
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Palliative medicine · Feb 2021
Measures of financial burden for families dealing with serious illness: A systematic review and analysis.
Many families coping with serious illness report experiencing financial burden, which negatively impacts coping and quality of life. Financial burden, however, is a complex construct that has been inconsistently operationalized in the literature. ⋯ To measure financial burden, we identified a need to develop and test multi-item measures, measures appropriate for patient populations and greater attention to the temporal aspects of self-report assessments.
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Palliative medicine · Feb 2021
A-qCPR risk score screening model for predicting 1-year mortality associated with hospice and palliative care in the emergency department.
Evaluating the need for palliative care and predicting its mortality play important roles in the emergency department. ⋯ A-qCPR risk scores provide a good screening tool for assessing patient prognosis. Routine screening for end-of-life using this tool plays an important role in early and efficient physician-patient communications regarding hospice and palliative needs in the emergency department.
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Palliative medicine · Feb 2021
A meta-ethnographic study of fathers' experiences of caring for a child with a life-limiting illness.
There is a growing body of qualitative studies examining parents' experiences of caring for a child with a life-limiting condition, coinciding with recent evidence that indicates an increasing incidence of paediatric life-limiting conditions. However, research focusing on fathers' needs remains sparse and is often diluted among a predominant 'mother's voice', raising questions about whether practices in clinical settings meet fathers' needs. ⋯ The findings indicate the value of a family-oriented approach to develop psychosocial interventions and support channels for fathers, thus empowering them whilst reducing the care-giving burden on the family unit.