"I couldn't say goodbye": Thematic analysis of interviews with bereaved relatives who lost their loved ones during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background: Delivering serious news is usually challenging for healthcare professionals and the pandemic of COVID-19 and related restrictions brought additional challenges in this process.

Aims: To explore the experience of bereaved relatives with receiving serious news from healthcare professionals during the pandemic COVID-19.

Design: A qualitative study using thematic analysis and a codebook approach of data collected in semi-structured interviews with bereaved relatives.

Small effects of olfactory identification and discrimination on global cognitive and executive performance over 1 year in aging people without a history of age-related cognitive impairment.

Olfactory and cognitive performance share neural correlates profoundly affected by physiological aging. However, whether odor identification and discrimination scores predict global cognitive status and executive function in healthy older people with intact cognition is unclear. Therefore, in the present study, we set out to elucidate these links in a convenience sample of 204 independently living, cognitively intact healthy Czech adults aged 77.

Implementation of an Advance Care Planning Intervention in Nursing Homes: An International Multiple Case Study.

Background And Objectives: The inability of individuals in the advanced stage of dementia to communicate about preferences in care at the end-of-life poses a challenge for healthcare professionals and family carers. The proven effective Family Carer Decision Support intervention has been designed to inform family carers about end-of-life care options available to a person living with advanced dementia. The objectives of the mySupport study were to adapt the application of the intervention for use in different countries, assess impact on family satisfaction and decision-making, and identify costs and supportive conditions for the implementation of the intervention.

Calling emergency medical services for terminally ill patients: a qualitative study exploring reasons why informal caregivers make the call.

Background: Although emergency medical service is focused on providing acute prehospital treatment, it is often used by terminally ill patients and their informal caregivers during the last days of patient's life. Little is known about why they decide to use the emergency medical services.

Study Objective: The aim was to explore informal caregivers' motivation and decision-making process for calling emergency medical services for their terminally ill loved ones.

Exploring the Holistic Needs of People Living with Cancer in Care Homes: An Integrative Review.

Up to 26% of individuals residing in care homes are impacted by cancer. This underscores the importance of understanding the holistic needs of care home residents living with cancer to enhance the quality of their care. The primary objective of this integrative literature review was to consolidate the available evidence concerning the comprehensive needs of people living with cancer in care home settings, providing valuable insights into addressing their diverse needs.

Methodological and ethical challenges in designing and conducting research at the end of life: A systematic review of qualitative and textual evidence.

Aim: This systematic review aims to identify methodological and ethical challenges in designing and conducting research at the end of life from the perspective of researchers and provide a set of recommendations.

Background: Conducting research with patients and family carers facing end-of-life issues is ethically and methodologically complex.

Design: A systematic review was conducted.

Parents' experiences of being involved in medical decision-making for their child with a life-limiting condition: A systematic review with narrative synthesis.

Background: Parental involvement in the decision-making processes about medical treatment for children with life-limiting conditions is recognised as good practice. Previous research highlighted factors affecting the decision-making process, but little is known about how parents experience their participation.

Aim: To explore how parents experience their participation in the process of decision-making about treatment and future care for their children with life-limiting conditions.

"I Didn't Expect to Be So Caught Up in It": a Qualitative Study of Experiences of Medical Students' Volunteering for Ukrainian Refugees.

Objective: Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 triggered a huge wave of migration, with thousands of refugees arriving at Prague's Central Station. With no medical service available, medical students started to volunteer and were running an infirmary available around the clock. The research aimed to explore medical students' professional experiences, emotionally challenging situations, and coping strategies in this demanding setting.

A family carer decision support intervention for people with advanced dementia residing in a nursing home: a study protocol for an international advance care planning intervention (mySupport study).

Background: Where it has been determined that a resident in a nursing home living with dementia loses decisional capacity, nursing home staff must deliver care that is in the person's best interests. Ideally, decisions should be made involving those close to the person, typically a family carer and health and social care providers. The aim of the Family Carer Decisional Support intervention is to inform family carers on end-of-life care options for a person living with advanced dementia and enable them to contribute to advance care planning.

Translation, cultural adaptation, and validation of the Integrated Palliative Outcome Scale-renal (IPOS-r) to Czech.

Background: Patients with advanced kidney disease suffer from burdensome symptoms, which should be assessed by valid and reliable patient-reported outcome measures. This study aimed to provide a translation, cultural adaptation, and validation of the Czech version of the IPOS-r.

Methods: The IPOS-r was translated to Czech and culturally adapted using cognitive interviews.

The Challenges of Inter-role Conflicts for Peer Support Workers.

The definitions of the roles of peer support workers (PSWs) are unclear, creating one of the main challenges to PSWs' successful involvement in mental health care. In this empirical qualitative study conducted in the Czech Republic, four common roles of PSWs (N=15) were identified: friend, professional, staff member, and expert-by-experience. Conflicts were observed between the roles of friend and professional and between staff member and expert-by-experience.

Association between prognostic awareness and quality of life in patients with advanced cancer.

Purpose: Despite the current guidelines supporting open communication about serious news, the evidence about the impact of prognostic awareness on the quality of life in cancer patients is not clear. The aim of this study was to assess the association between quality of life and prognostic awareness in patients with advanced cancer.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional study which involved patients (n = 129) with incurable advanced cancer (estimated by oncologist using 12-month surprise question).

Developing country-specific questions about end-of-life care for nursing home residents with advanced dementia using the nominal group technique with family caregivers.

Objective: We aimed to develop question prompt lists (QPLs) for family caregivers of nursing home residents with advanced dementia in the context of a study involving Canada, the Czech Republic, Italy, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Ireland, and to explore cross-national differences. QPLs can encourage family caregivers to ask questions about their relative's end-of-life care.

Methods: We used nominal group methods to create country-specific QPLs.

Views of patients with advanced disease and their relatives on participation in palliative care research.

Background: Patients with advanced disease may not be invited to participate in research based on the assumption that participation would be too burdensome for them. The aim of this study was to explore how patients with advanced disease and their relatives evaluate their experience with research participation.

Method: This study used data from two parts of a larger project.

Prognostic awareness in advanced cancer patients and their caregivers: A longitudinal cohort study.

Objective: The aim of this study was to analyse longitudinal development of prognostic awareness in advanced cancer patients and their families.

Methods: This was a longitudinal cohort study, involving 134 adult cancer patients, 91 primary family caregivers and 21 treating oncologists. Key eligibility criterion for patients was life expectancy less than 1 year (estimated by their oncologists using the 12-month surprised question).

Optimal participation in decision-making in advanced chronic disease: perspectives of patients, relatives and physicians.

Background: Making decisions about health care issues in advanced illness is difficult and the participation of patients and relatives is essential. Most of the studies on shared decision-making focus on the interaction between patient and physician (dyadic interaction), while the role of relatives in triadic decision-making remains less explored. The aim of the study was to investigate the perceived importance of the role of the patient, the physician and the relative in the decision-making from their respective perspectives.

Factors associated with prognostic awareness in patients with cancer: A systematic review.

Objectives: Prognostic awareness relates to patients' capacity to understand their prognosis and the likely illness trajectory. Based on the current evidence, accurate PA is associated with decrease in uncertainty, depresivity, and anxiety and with increase in quality of life. However, other studies found also negative associations of PA and quality of life and mental health.

Psychometric properties of the Czech Integrated Palliative Outcome Scale: reliability and content validity analysis.

Background: Outcome measurement is an essential part of the evaluation of palliative care and the measurements need to be reliable, valid and adapted to the culture in which they are used. The Integrated Palliative Outcome Scale (IPOS) is a widely used tool for assessing personal-level outcomes in palliative care. The aim of this study was to provide Czech version of IPOS and assess its psychometric properties.