Nurse-led framework to improve the safety and quality of residential aged care (HIRAID® Aged Care): protocol for a stepped-wedge cluster randomised controlled trial.

Background: The health issues experienced by older people can often be severe and complex, and an increasing number are using residential aged care services to meet their care needs. High-quality nursing care is fundamental to the health and safety of aged care residents and is contingent on nurses' accurate assessment, informed decision-making, and delivery of timely interventions. However, the role of the aged care nurse is often challenging, impeded by factors such as understaffing, high workloads, and a lack of access to clinical infrastructure and resources.

Partner-delivered reflexology: effects on cancer pain and anxiety.

Purpose/objectives: To compare the effects of partner-delivered foot reflexology and usual care plus attention on patients' perceived pain and anxiety.

Design: The experimental pretest/post-test design included patient-partner dyads randomly assigned to an experimental or control group.

Setting: Four hospitals in the southeastern United States.

Partner-guided cancer pain management at the end of life: a preliminary study.

This preliminary study tested the efficacy of a partner-guided cancer pain management protocol for patients who are at the end of life. Seventy-eight advanced cancer patients meeting criteria for hospice eligibility and their partners were randomly assigned to a partner-guided pain management training intervention, or usual care control condition. The partner-guided pain management training protocol was a three-session intervention conducted in patients' homes that integrated educational information about cancer pain with systematic training of patients and partners in cognitive and behavioral pain coping skills.

The self-efficacy of family caregivers for helping cancer patients manage pain at end-of-life.

This preliminary study examined the self-efficacy of family caregivers with regard to helping cancer patients manage pain at end of life. A sample of 63 family caregivers of hospice-eligible cancer patients with pain provided ratings of their self-efficacy in assisting the patient in pain management and rated their own mood and level of caregiver strain. Patients completed measures of pain and quality of life.