Palliative care is delivered by a number of professional groups and informal providers across a range of settings. This arrangement works well in that it maximizes avenues for providing care, but may also bring about complicated ‘politics’ due to struggles over control and decision-making power. Thirty-one interviews conducted with formal and informal palliative care providers in a rural region...

Palliative care is an important and challenging part of a practice nurse’s role. The appropriate and timely transition of a patient to palliative care can be stressful and difficult for the patient and all those involved in their care. Referral to palliative care services is a complex process. Its importance should not be underestimated, if the fear and misunderstandings around accepting pallia...

BACKGROUND Non-specialist palliative care, as it is delivered by general practitioners, is a basic component of a comprehensive palliative care infrastructure for adult patients with progressive and far advanced disease. Currently palliative care for children and adolescents is recognized as a distinct entity of care, requiring networks of service providers across different settings, including ...

CONTEXT Pediatric palliative care clinical practice depends upon an evidence-based decision-making process which in turn is based upon current research evidence. AIMS This study aimed to perform a quantitative analysis of research publications in palliative care journals for reporting characteristics of articles on pediatric palliative care. SETTINGS AND DESIGN This was a systematic review ...

The high burden of non-communicable diseases and communicable diseases in Africa characterised by late presentation and diagnosis makes the need for palliative care a priority from the point of diagnosis to death and through bereavement. Palliative care is an intervention that requires a multidisciplinary team to address the multifaceted needs of the patient and family. Thus, its development ta...

CONTEXT The Palliative Care Outcome Scale (POS) is an easy-to-use assessment tool to evaluate the effectiveness of palliative care. There is no published literature on the use of POS as an assessment tool in Malaysia. AIM To define the concordance in the assessment of quality of life between patients with advanced cancers and their palliative care nurses using a Malay version of the POS. SE...

Background: Emergency department-based palliative care services are increasing, but research to develop these services rarely includes input from emergency clinicians, jeopardizing the effectiveness of subsequent palliative care interventions. Aim: To collaboratively identify with emergency clinicians improvement priorities for emergency department-based palliative care for older people. Design...

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to develop a reliable and valid scale that broadly measures knowledge about palliative care among non-healthcare professionals. METHOD An initial item pool of 38 true/false questions was developed based on extensive qualitative and quantitative pilot research. The preliminary items were tested with a community sample of 614 adults aged 18-89 years as we...

The American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) believes that pharmacists have a pivotal role in the provision of hospice and palliative care and that pharmacists should be integral members of all hospice interdisciplinary teams. Pharmacists practicing in U.S. health systems have been active in defining and providing palliative care since the introduction of hospice through a demonstra...

BACKGROUND The care that most people receive at the end of their lives is provided not by specialist palliative care professionals but by generalists such as GPs, district nurses and others who have not undertaken specialist training in palliative care. A key focus of recent UK policy is improving partnership working across the spectrum of palliative care provision. However there is little evid...