Exploring symptom meaning: perspectives of palliative care physicians.

Context: Understanding patients' symptom experiences is essential to providing effective clinical care. The discussion between patients and physicians of symptom meaning and its significance, however, is ill understood.

Objectives: To investigate palliative care physicians' understanding of symptom meaning, and their experiences of and attitudes towards the discussion of symptom meaning with patients.

What is symptom meaning? A framework analysis of communication in palliative care consultations.

Objective: There is a limited understanding of symptom meaning and its significance to clinical practice within symptom experience literature. This study aims to qualitatively explore the ways in which symptom meanings are discussed by patients and responded to by palliative care physicians during consultations.

Methods: Framework analysis was conducted with 40 palliative care consultation transcripts.