Effect of specialist palliative care services on quality of life in adults with advanced incurable illness in hospital, hospice, or community settings: systematic review and meta-analysis.

 To assess the effect of specialist palliative care on quality of life and additional outcomes relevant to patients in those with advanced illness. Systematic review with meta-analysis. Medline, Embase, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, PsycINFO, and trial registers searched up to July 2016.

Pharmacological interventions for pruritus in adult palliative care patients.

Background: This is an update of the original Cochrane review published in 2013 (Issue 6). Pruritus occurs in patients with disparate underlying diseases and is caused by different pathologic mechanisms. In palliative care patients, pruritus is not the most prevalent but is one of the most puzzling symptoms.

Tidying rooms and tending hearts: An explorative, mixed-methods study of hospital cleaning staff's experiences with seriously ill and dying patients.

Background/aim: Palliative care is based on multi-professional team work. In this study, we investigated how cleaning staff communicate and interact with seriously ill and dying patients as well as how cleaning staff cope with the situation of death and dying.

Design: Sequential mixed methods, consisting of semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and a questionnaire.

Specialist palliative care services for adults with advanced, incurable illness in hospital, hospice, or community settings--protocol for a systematic review.

Background: Specialist palliative care (SPC) interventions aim to relieve and prevent suffering in the physical, psychological, social, and spiritual domain. Therefore, SPC is carried out by a multi-professional team with different occupations (e.g.

Early Palliative Care-Health services research and implementation of sustainable changes: the study protocol of the EVI project.

Background: International medical organizations such as the American Society of Medical Oncology recommend early palliative care as the "gold standard" for palliative care in patients with advanced cancer. Nevertheless, even in Comprehensive Cancer Centers, early palliative care is not yet routine practice. The main goal of the EVI project is to evaluate whether early palliative care can be implemented-in the sense of "putting evidence into practice"-into the everyday clinical practice of Comprehensive Cancer Centers.

Education in End-of-Life Care: What Do Experienced Professionals Find Important?

End-of-life care is an essential element of quality cancer care. Nevertheless, a majority of physicians and nurses working at cancer centers feel unprepared for this task. As part of a larger survey study, we investigated what suggestions experienced physicians and nurses have to improve education/training on end-of-life care.

Drug treatments for pruritus in adult palliative care.

Background: Pruritus is a rare but troublesome symptom in palliative-care patients with a variety of underlying diseases. The pharmacotherapy of pruritus is often off-label, and an evidence-based evaluation is needed.

Methods: A Cochrane Review published in 2013 was updated with a systematic literature search up to January 2014.

Terminally ill patients as customers: the patient's perspective.

Background: Consumerism in health care defines patients as self-determined, rational customers. Yet, it is questionable whether vulnerable patients, such as the terminally ill, also fulfill these criteria. Vulnerable contexts and the patient's perspective on being a customer remain relatively unexplored.

Pharmacological interventions for pruritus in adult palliative care patients.

Background: Pruritus is not the most prevalent but one of the most puzzling symptoms in palliative care patients. It can cause considerable discomfort and has a major impact on patients' quality of life. In the field of palliative care, pruritus is a symptom occurring in patients with disparate underlying diseases and based on different pathologic mechanisms but ending in the same phenomenon.

[Survey of potential improvements during the course of the radiotherapy treatment--a patient questionnaire].

Introduction And Background: In the context of quality assurance, increasing demands are placed on the whole radiotherapy treatment process. The patients directly concerned generally do not realize most aspects of the quality assurance program (e.g.

Palliative cancer care: an epidemiologic study.

Purpose: To analyze the need for palliative care in hospital patients who have cancer. Palliative care is an essential component of comprehensive cancer care and identification of palliative care needs (PCNs) of patients with cancer is a topic that has not been thoroughly studied.

Patients And Methods: Data were collected prospectively from inpatients of University Medical Center Freiburg in Freiburg, Germany, with 982 hospital beds included in the study.

Methylnaltrexone: the evidence for its use in the management of opioid-induced constipation.

Introduction: Constipation is a distressing side effect of opioid treatment, being so irksome in some cases that patients would rather suffer the pain than the side effect of opioid analgesics. Stool softeners or stimulating laxatives are often ineffective or even aggravate the situation. A new efficacious and safe drug is needed to limit the frequently observed side effects induced by effective opioid-based analgesic therapy and to improve the quality of life for patients, most of whom are impaired by a severe disease.

Planning training seminars in palliative care: a cross-sectional survey on the preferences of general practitioners and nurses in Austria.

Background: Training in palliative care is frequently requested by health care professionals. However, little is known in detail about the subject matters and the educational preferences of physicians and staff or assistant nurses in this field.

Methods: All 897 registered GPs and all 933 registered home care nurses in the district of Steiermark/Austria were sent postal questionnaires.

[The situation of radiation oncology patients' relatives. A stocktaking].

Background And Purpose: Recent studies have shown a very high importance of relatives in decisions about medical interventions. Therefore, the situation of this group was investigated in the sense of a stocktaking by interviewing the closest relatives of radiotherapy patients. INTERVIEWED PERSONS AND METHODS: In a defined span of time (6 weeks), a total of 470 relatives (evaluable: n = 287, 61%) of radiotherapy patients were interviewed by a newly developed questionnaire about their contentment with their inclusion in the therapy course.

Four minutes for a patient, twenty seconds for a relative - an observational study at a university hospital.

Background: In the modern hospital environment, increasing possibilities in medical examination techniques and increasing documentation tasks claim the physicians' energy and encroach on their time spent with patients. This study aimed to investigate how much time physicians at hospital wards spend on communication with patients and their families and how much time they spend on other specific work tasks.

Methods: A non-participatory, observational study was conducted in thirty-six wards at the University Medical Center Freiburg, a 1700-bed academic hospital in Germany.

Do religious or spiritual beliefs influence bereavement? A systematic review.

Background: Responses to bereavement may be influenced by characteristics such as age or gender, but also by factors like culture and religion.

Aim: A systematic review was undertaken to assess whether spiritual or religious beliefs alter the process of grief and/or bereavement.

Methods: Fifteen computerized databases were searched.

End-of-life care in hospital: current practice and potentials for improvement.

From July until September 2004, all deaths were registered prospectively in all departments of Freiburg University Hospital, Germany, a large teaching hospital with approximately 55,000 inpatient admissions per year. A retrospective chart review was done for all patients who died during this time period using a tool validated in two American and Australian projects. Main outcome measures were patients' identification as dying by medical staff, Do-Not-Resuscitate (DNR) orders, and the presence of comfort care plans.

Religious belief as a coping strategy: an explorative trial in patients irradiated for head-and-neck cancer.

Purpose: To explore the role of religious belief in coping with disease symptoms and treatment-related side effects in patients with head-and-neck cancer under radiotherapy.

Patients And Methods: Prospectively collected data were used with a cohort of head-and-neck cancer patients treated by radiotherapy and epoetin beta or placebo within a double-blind multicenter trial. All patients were divided into believers and nonbelievers.