Palliative care

Background: People requiring palliative care should have their needs met by services acting in accordance with their wishes. A hospice in the south of England provides such care via a 24/7 hospice at home service. This study aimed to establish how a nurse-led night service supported patients and family carers to remain at home and avoid hospital admissions. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were carried out with family carers (n=38) and hospice-at-home staff (n=9).

Objective: This research was conducted for the purpose of examining the care burden and quality of life in family caregivers of palliative care patients. Design: The research design was a descriptive correlational study conducted with the caregivers of 163 patients residing in palliative care units. Data were collected via a demographic survey, The Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI) and the World Health Organization Quality of Life Assessment (WHOQOL).

Background: The attention of healthcare professionals is directed mainly towards the recipients of care and often insufficiently towards family carers. However, an effective collaboration between professionals and family carers is vital to provide quality palliative and end-of-life care. Such collaboration is under-studied in a palliative care context.

The article presents a study which analyzed the effects of advanced care planning interventions like the Family-Centered Advance Care Planning for Teens with Cancer (FACE-TC) on families' evaluation of their experiences in familial distress and caregiving. FACE-TC is recognized by the National Cancer Institute. Allso cited is the importance of pediatric palliative care in addressing the patients' and families' goals and values during serious illnesses.

Background and Objectives: African-American family caregivers may have insufficient knowledge to make informed end-of-life (EOL) decisions for relatives with dementias. Advance Care Treatment Plan (ACT-Plan) is a community-based education intervention to enhance knowledge of dementia and associated EOL medical treatments, self-efficacy, intentions, and behavior (written EOL care plan). This study evaluated efficacy of the intervention compared to attention control.

Background: ENABLE (Educate, Nurture, Advise, Before Life Ends) is a nurse coach-led, early palliative care model for patients with advanced cancer and their family caregivers. Content covered includes problem-solving, advance care planning, symptom management and self-care. The aim was to evaluate the cultural acceptability of ENABLE among patients with advanced cancer and their caregivers in Singapore and identify modifications for an adapted ENABLE-SG model.

Background: Between 2000 and 2020, Europe experienced an annual net arrival of approximately 1.6 million immigrants per year. While having lower mortality rates, in the setting of severe diseases, immigrants bear a greater cancer-related burden due to linguistic and cultural barriers and socio-economic conditions. Professionals face a two-fold task: managing clinical conditions while considering the social, economic, cultural, and spiritual sphere of patients and their families.

The growth of life expectancy in Central Eastern Europe and increase in the number of older people in that region are the consequences of changes in the 1990s period, connected to transition from the communism into a market economy. Central Eastern Europe is already facing consequences of fast ageing and insufficient development of state health care and social services. Those result in gaps in the provision of end-of-life care and overburden of family caregivers.

An individual and psychological emphasis has influenced practice and research on bereavement following informal care provision in the context of life-limiting illness. Consideration of the potential for bereavement to be shaped by intersecting social and structural inequities is needed; and should include an understanding of interactions with government institutions and social policy.

Background: Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder associated with caregiver burden. Higher rates of burden are associated with adverse outcomes for caregivers and patients. Our aim was to understand patient and caregiver predictors of caregiver burden in PD from a palliative care approach.