Publications by authors named "Helen Y L Chan"

Advanced practice nurses (APNs) have been responding to worldwide changing patient comorbidities, inequalities within access to care, and a shortage of primary care physicians. The scope of practice for these nurses has been expanding internationally but varies across different jurisdictions. For a period of time during the COVID-19 pandemic, APN trainees' opportunities to work with international mentors in-person were limited.

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  • Advance care planning (ACP) is crucial for palliative care, but documentation and discussions about it have been persistently low, highlighting the need for better family involvement in medical decisions.
  • This study evaluates a structured, family-supported ACP program for adult palliative care patients by comparing outcomes in a randomized controlled trial with patients receiving standard care.
  • The primary goal is to see how accurately families can predict patients' treatment preferences, with various secondary outcomes focused on communication, emotional well-being, and overall satisfaction with the intervention.
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  • Explicit end-of-life discussions are rare in Confucian-influenced Asian societies, making culturally sensitive advance care planning challenging, especially with the important role of families in decision-making.
  • A Delphi study involving 115 multidisciplinary experts from five Asian regions aimed to create a consensus definition of advance care planning and provide practical recommendations for a patient-centered and family-based approach.
  • The proposed definition emphasizes identifying personal values and preferences for future medical care while engaging family and healthcare providers, with high agreement on various recommendations that can inform practices, education, and policies for culturally relevant care in Asia.
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Background: Carers of patients with advanced organ failure (AOF) experience a tremendous caregiving burden. Social capital utilizes the internal strength of a community to support its members and may provide carers with comprehensive support. This study aimed to identify the different sources of social capital that can support carers of patients with AOF from the perspectives of stakeholders.

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Psychoeducation with an active participation component is effective in facilitating family caregivers of people living with dementia to learn about the disease and gain relevant caregiving skills. However, research into the best strategies to promote active participation has received little attention, and the factors hindering active participation are also unknown. Therefore, the nine-stage framework of the Joanna Briggs Institute methodology for scoping reviews was adopted to map and identify information about the active participation of family caregivers of people living with dementia in psychoeducation.

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Objectives: Using a dyadic approach, this study examined the mediating effect of depressive symptoms on the longitudinal relationships between husbands' and wives' memory trajectories and their prospective disability status.

Methods: Longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study 2004-2018 were used. Older (aged 50+) heterosexual couples who had no limitations in the activity of daily living at the baseline (2004) were included (N = 1,310).

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Aim: To understand participants' experiences with a culturally specific DEmentia Competence Education for Nursing home Taskforce programme within the contexts which was delivered.

Design: An exploratory descriptive qualitative approach.

Methods: Semi-structured individual interviews were conducted within one week with the participants upon their completion of the programme from July 2020 to January 2021.

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Hong Kong is a well-developed city with outstanding healthcare services, leading to the highest life expectancy in the world. Paradoxically, the quality of end-of-life care in this city lagged behind that of many other high-income regions. Possibly, the advances in medicine contribute to the death denial culture, hindering communication about end-of-life care.

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  • - The review aims to analyze existing literature on loneliness at end-of-life, highlighting important gaps in research related to this topic.
  • - Findings indicate that loneliness is common among individuals nearing the end of life due to factors like health decline and social withdrawal, with popular measurement tools identified but lacking comprehensive data on prevalence.
  • - The review suggests potential strategies for reducing loneliness, emphasizing the need for more robust clinical trials to test interventions that support spirituality and social connections.
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Background: Older people with frailty are more likely to experience negative psychological well-being, depressive symptoms, anxiety, and stress. Deterioration of psychological outcomes, in turn, further aggravates the frailty status among this vulnerable population. Considering the undesirable effects of polypharmacy on older people, the use of non-pharmacological intervention has attracted increasing attention.

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Although educational resources have been developed to build staff's dementia care competence in Western culture, their applicability and cultural relevance to the Chinese population are questionable. To address this gap, the DEmentia Competence Education for Nursing home Taskforce (DECENT) programme was developed and tailored to Chinese staff. This study aimed to evaluate the feasibility and preliminary effects of the DECENT programme.

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  • Existing dementia care training programs are mostly Western-focused, raising concerns about their relevance and effectiveness in other cultural contexts, particularly within Chinese communities.
  • The DECENT program, which is designed specifically for these communities, was tested in a multi-site study involving nursing homes in China, utilizing various teaching methods over 8 weeks.
  • Results showed significant improvements in the intervention group's sense of competence in dementia care immediately after the program and three months later, although knowledge and attitudes saw mixed results, and other measured factors did not show significant differences.
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Introduction: Many family caregivers experience significant burdens, especially those who take care of patients with chronic organ failure. Although the social welfare system offers some material assistance, a more sustainable approach to supporting caregivers is warranted. This study aims to explore the social capital (ie, the internal strengths of a community that facilitate different social roles) available for these family caregivers.

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Advance care planning (ACP) facilitates individuals to proactively make decisions on their end-of-life care when they are mentally competent. It is highly relevant to older adults with frailty because they are more vulnerable to cognitive impairment, disabilities, and death. Despite devoting effort to promoting ACP among them, ACP and advance directive completion rates remain low.

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Background Although training can improve the quality of clinical teaching for nurse preceptors, research on the training needs of junior versus senior preceptors is limited. This study sought to examine the differences in their needs by comparing their clinical teaching experience and the training they received. Method A secondary analysis of a cross-sectional survey was conducted in three hospitals using the Clinical Teaching Behavior Inventory (CTBI).

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  • - The study aimed to translate the Sense of Competence in Dementia Care Staff (SCIDS) scale into Chinese (SCIDS-C) and to validate it for assessing dementia-care competence among Chinese healthcare providers! - A total of 290 healthcare providers participated in the survey, showing high content validity and acceptable reliability with a Cronbach's α of .87 and a test-retest reliability score of 0.88! - Although the SCIDS-C demonstrated acceptable validity overall, it revealed significant differences between health professionals and care assistants in some scores, indicating its potential utility for educational interventions!
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Sarcopenia, defined as a progressive loss of muscle mass and reduced muscle strength and functional capacity, is common among older adults. This study aimed to assess the proportion of people at risk of sarcopenia and probable sarcopenia among Chinese community-dwelling older adults living alone and to identify the associated factors. A total of 390 older adults were included in this study.

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Dementia education for healthcare providers has gained growing attention in China. This study aimed to explore the current dementia care practices in care home setting in China because people with dementia have increased need for residential care as the cognitive function worsens. An exploratory qualitative study was conducted among care staff and residents with dementia in four care homes in a metropolitan city in China between May and August 2019.

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There is currently growing recognition of the complex care needs of patients with life-limiting conditions and their family members, prompting the need to revisit the goals of medicine. This Special Issue reflects a broad research agenda in the field of palliative and end-of-life care. A total of 16 papers of empirical studies and systematic review are included spanning five domains, namely, patient, caregiver, healthcare provider, policy, and methodology.

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Aims: To translate 25-item Dementia Knowledge Assessment Scale into Chinese and evaluate its psychometric properties amongst Chinese healthcare providers.

Background: The prevalence of dementia is increasing in China, but development of relevant training for healthcare providers is still in its infancy stage. A comprehensive, valid and reliable Chinese knowledge-of-dementia measure is needed to identify training needs and evaluate the effect of educational interventions.

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Few studies have explored the inter-relationships of sources of social support and caregiving self-efficacy with caregiver burden and patient's quality of life among patients with palliative care needs and their caregivers. This study tested the associations of two sources of social support (family and friends) and the mediating role of caregiving self-efficacy on caregiver burden and patient's quality of life. A convenience sample of 225 patient-caregiver dyads recruited between September 2016 and May 2017 from three hospitals in Hong Kong was included in the current analysis.

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