Publications by authors named "Frederika E Witkamp"
Objective: To obtain insight into adaptation processes of redefining normality and its influencing factors in relatives of patients with advanced cancer.
Methods: An exploratory qualitative study among relatives of patients with advanced cancer was conducted. Participants were purposively recruited.
Objective: Relatives of patients with advanced cancer often have many caring responsibilities. Not everyone may have sufficient knowledge, skills, and confidence-also known as caregiver activation-to provide such care. We assessed caregiver activation in relatives and its association with their personal characteristics and their own well-being.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Family caregivers enable patients to be cared for and die at home whereas nurses aim to support the family caregivers of these patients. Information on how this support is provided and how this is documented in nursing files is largely lacking.
Aim: To gain insight in nurses' reports on the supportive care for family caregivers.
Background: Patients with advanced cancer are increasingly expected to self-manage. Thus far, this topic has received little systematic attention.
Aim: To summarise studies describing self-management strategies of patients with advanced cancer and associated experiences and personal characteristics.
Purpose: Involvement of palliative care experts improves the quality of life and satisfaction with care of patients who are in the last stage of life. However, little is known about the relation between palliative care expert involvement and quality of dying (QOD) in the hospital. We studied the association between palliative care team (PCT) consultation and QOD in the hospital as experienced by relatives.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: To determine the effectiveness of advance care planning (ACP) in frail older adults.
Design: Cluster randomized controlled trial.
Setting: Residential care homes in the Netherlands (N=16).
Objectives: Burdensome and futile interventions with the aim of prolonging life should be avoided in dying patients. However, current clinical practice has hardly been investigated.We examined the number and type of diagnostic and therapeutic medical interventions in hospitalised patients with cancer in their last days of life.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: For patients with a hematological malignancy, allogeneic stem cell transplantation (alloSCT) is a treatment modality that may cause a wide range of problems. Little is known about the process of recovery and rehabilitation and the problems that alloSCT patients are confronted with during the first-year posttransplant.
Objective: This study explored the problems of patients during the first year after alloSCT, to better understand the process of recovery and rehabilitation.
Background: Currently, health care and medical decision-making at the end of life for older people are often insufficiently patient-centred. In this trial we study the effects of Advance Care Planning (ACP), a formalised process of timely communication about care preferences at the end of life, for frail older people.
Methods/design: We will conduct a cluster randomised controlled trial among older people residing in care homes or receiving home care in the Netherlands.
Background: To improve the quality of end-of-life care, hospitals increasingly appoint palliative care nurse champions.
Aim: We investigated the effect of nurse champions on the quality of life during the last 3 days of life and the quality of dying as experienced by bereaved relatives.
Design: A controlled before-and-after study (June 2009-July 2012).
Context: Most deaths in Western countries occur in hospital, but little is known about factors determining the quality of dying (QOD).
Objectives: The aim was to assess the QOD in hospital as experienced by relatives and identify factors related to QOD.
Methods: A cross-sectional study on 18 wards of a university hospital in The Netherlands was conducted, including relatives of patients who died after an admission of more than six hours, from June 2009 to March 2011.
Background: In hospitals, where care is focused on cure and life prolongation, impending death is often recognized too late. Physician awareness of impending death is a prerequisite for communication with patients and relatives about dying in hospital and providing care that adequately addresses patients' needs.
Objective: To examine to what extent physicians are aware of the impending death of their dying patients and if awareness is related with communication and medical care, with quality of life in the last 3 days and quality of dying.
The purpose of this study was the psychometric testing of a questionnaire to assess nurses' opinions, subjective norms, perceived difficulties, and knowledge related to palliative care. The 63-item MOVE2PC Questionnaire was tested among 219 nurses in groups differing in education and experience. The intra-rater agreement was moderate to good (к > .
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The quality of care of patients dying in the hospital is often judged as insufficient. This article describes the protocol of a study to assess the quality of care of the dying patient and the contribution of an intervention targeted on staff nurses of inpatient wards of a large university hospital in the Netherlands.
Methods/design: We designed a controlled before and after study.