International variations in clinical practice guidelines for palliative sedation: a systematic review.

Objectives: Palliative sedation is a highly debated medical practice, particularly regarding its proper use in end-of-life care. Worldwide, guidelines are used to standardise care and regulate this practice. In this review, we identify and compare national/regional clinical practice guidelines on palliative sedation against the European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC) palliative sedation Framework and assess the developmental quality of these guidelines using the Appraisal Guideline Research and Evaluation (AGREE II) instrument.

Benefits of interventions for respiratory secretion management in adult palliative care patients-a systematic review.

Background: Respiratory secretions impact negatively on palliative patients. Unfortunately, a gold standard therapy is not yet available. The purpose of this study was to identify which interventions are in use to control respiratory secretions in patients with chronic disease with a poor prognosis and verify their effects on outcomes relevant for palliative care patients.

Towards a standardised approach for evaluating guidelines and guidance documents on palliative sedation: study protocol.

Background: Sedation in palliative care has received growing attention in recent years; and so have guidelines, position statements, and related literature that provide recommendations for its practice. Yet little is known collectively about the content, scope and methodological quality of these materials. According to research, there are large variations in palliative sedation practice, depending on the definition and methodology used.

The complexity of nurses' attitudes and practice of sedation at the end of life: a systematic literature review.

Context: Sedation is administered to some palliative care patients at the end of their life. Nurses play an important role in this practice.

Objectives: To systematically review the evidence on nurses' attitudes and practice of end-of-life sedation.

End-of-life care and circumstances of death in patients dying as a result of cancer in Belgium and the Netherlands: a retrospective comparative study.

Purpose: To examine and compare end-of-life care in patients with cancer dying in Belgium and the Netherlands.

Patients And Methods: A mortality follow-back study was undertaken in 2008 via representative nationwide sentinel networks of general practitioners (GPs) in Belgium and the Netherlands. By using similar standardized procedures, GPs reported on aspects of end-of-life care and the circumstances of nonsudden death of patients with cancer in their practice.

Recognising patients who will die in the near future: a nationwide study via the Dutch Sentinel Network of GPs.

Background: Recognising patients who will die in the near future is important for adequate planning and provision of end-of-life care. GPs can play a key role in this.

Aim: To explore the following questions: How long before death do GPs recognise patients likely to die in the near future? Which patient, illness, and care-related characteristics are related to such recognition? How does recognising death in the near future, before the last week of life, relate to care in during this period?

Design And Setting: One-year follow-back study via a surveillance GP network in the Netherlands.

Advance care planning in Belgium and The Netherlands: a nationwide retrospective study via sentinel networks of general practitioners.

Context: Advance care planning (ACP) is an important part of patient-centered palliative care. There have been few nationwide studies of ACP, especially in Europe.

Objectives: To investigate the prevalence and characteristics of ACP in two European countries and identify the associated factors.

Discussing end-of-life issues in the last months of life: a nationwide study among general practitioners.

Background: Communication is a necessary tool for ensuring the provision of quality patient-centered care for patients who have life-threatening illnesses, and discussing all relevant end-of-life issues should not be limited to cancer patients.

Objective: To examine the incidence and timing of general practitioners (GPs) discussing end-of-life issues with patients whose deaths were expected, and to identify the factors associated with them discussing these issues.

Methods: Between January and December 2008, GPs participating in a nationally representative sentinel surveillance network of GPs were asked to register, using standardised forms, the extent of discussing 10 end-of-life issues with patients.

Use of palliative care services and general practitioner visits at the end of life in The Netherlands and Belgium.

Context: At the end of life, some personalized and specialized care is required. The way that general practitioner (GP) visits and palliative care services at the end of life are organized in different countries may impact the frequency of care provision. However, nationwide data on the prevalence of these interventions and comparisons among countries are scarce.

The oldest old and GP end-of-life care in the Dutch community: a nationwide study.

Background: Provision of adequate care for the oldest old is increasingly crucial, given the current ageing trends. This study explores differences in end-of-life care of the oldest (≥85 years) versus the younger (65-84 years) old; testing the hypothesis that age could be an independent correlate of receiving specialised palliative care services (SPCS), having palliative-centred treatment and dying in a preferred place.

Methods: general practitioners (GPs) participating in the nation-wide representative network in the Netherlands were asked to fill in patient, illness and care characteristics of all registered patients ≥65 years, who died non-suddenly in their practices between 2005 and 2008, using standardised forms.

Transitions between care settings at the end of life in the Netherlands: results from a nationwide study.

Multiple transitions between care settings in the last phase of life could jeopardize continuity of care and overall end-of-life patient care. Using a mortality follow-back study, we examined the nature and prevalence of transitions between Dutch care settings in the last 3 months of life, and identified potential characteristics associated with them. During the 2-year study period, 690 registered patients died 'totally expectedly and non-suddenly'.

General practitioner awareness of preferred place of death and correlates of dying in a preferred place: a nationwide mortality follow-back study in the Netherlands.

To improve the quality of end-of-life care, general practitioner (GP) awareness of where their patients prefer to die is important. To examine GP awareness of patients' preferred place of death (POD), associated patient- and care-related characteristics, and the congruence between preferred and actual POD in The Netherlands, a mortality follow-back study was conducted between January 2005 and December 2006. Standardized registration forms were used to collect data on all nonsudden deaths (n=637) by means of the Dutch Sentinel Network, a nationally representative network of general practices.