An educational package that supports laycarers to safely manage breakthrough subcutaneous injections for home-based palliative care patients: development and evaluation of a service quality improvement.

Background: Palliative care services strive to support people to live and die well in their chosen environment, with optimal symptom control and a pattern of care supportive of laycarers. The likelihood of patients remaining at home often depends upon laycarers, who may be required to manage subcutaneous medications.

Aim And Design: This study reports the development, trial and evaluation of a package that teaches laycarers to manage subcutaneous medications used for symptom control in home-based patients.

A residential aged care end-of-life care pathway (RAC EoLCP) for Australian aged care facilities.

The objective of this study was to develop, implement and evaluate an end-of-life (terminal) care pathway and associated infrastructure suitable for Australian residential aged care facilities that improves resident and health system outcomes. The residential aged care end-of-life care pathway was developed by a multidisciplinary collaboration of government and non-government professionals and incorporated best clinical management for dying residents to guide care and increase palliative care capacity of generalist staff. Implementation included identifying and up-skilling Link Nurses to champion the pathway, networking facilities with specialist palliative care services, delivering education to generalists and commencing a Palliative Care Medication Imprest System in each facility.

The role of persuasive arguments in changing affirmative action attitudes and expressed behavior in higher education.

The research reported in this article examined the conditions under which persuasive arguments are most effective in changing university students' attitudes and expressed behavior with respect to affirmative action (AA). The conceptual framework was a model that integrated the theory of reasoned action and the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion. Studies 1 and 2 established effective manipulations of positive?negative AA information, and peripheral?central routes of processing.

Lay caregivers' perspectives on injecting subcutaneous medications at home.

Background: Most palliative care patients prefer to be cared for at home. While promoting quality of life for patients, this preference impacts on their caregivers. Lay caregivers in Australia can be required to deliver and adjust complex medication regimens.

Randomised controlled trials of palliative care - a survey of the views of advanced cancer patients and their relatives.

Purpose: To determine if patients with advanced cancer are interested in participation in palliative care research, particularly RCTs, and the importance of demographic factors in decision making. It sought relatives' views towards supporting trial entry, and assessed if demographic factors can predict participation.

Methods: A questionnaire was developed through multiprofessional focus groups, patient and relative interviews and pilot studies.

Relief of incident dyspnea in palliative cancer patients: a pilot, randomized, controlled trial comparing nebulized hydromorphone, systemic hydromorphone, and nebulized saline.

Acute episodic breathlessness in patients receiving palliative care is a distressing symptom with little evidence-base to inform management. This pilot, double-blind, controlled, crossover study compared the effects of nebulized hydromorphone, systemic hydromorphone and nebulized saline for the relief of episodic breathlessness in advanced cancer patients. On three occasions of acute breathlessness, patients randomly received either nebulized hydromorphone, a systemic breakthrough dose of hydromorphone or nebulized saline together with a blinding agent.

Telephone counselling as an adjunct to nicotine patches in smoking cessation: a randomised controlled trial.

Objectives: To investigate the effectiveness of telephone counselling as an adjunct to nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) by transdermal patch in smoking cessation.

Design: Randomised controlled trial.

Participants And Setting: 854 smokers from New South Wales, aged 18 years and older, who had smoked at least 10 cigarettes per day for the past year and responded to newspaper advertisements between October 2001 and January 2002; the trial was conducted between October 2001 and August 2002.

The effect of dexamethasone on the longevity of syringe driver subcutaneous sites in palliative care patients.

Objective: To assess the effect of adding 1 mg dexamethasone to syringe drivers on the viability time of subcutaneous cannulation sites in palliative care patients.

Design: Prospective, double-blind, randomised, controlled trial in which patients received half their daily infused medications plus 1 mg dexamethasone in 1 mL saline through one subcutaneous site (test site) and the other half of their medications plus 1 mL saline through another symmetrically placed site (control site).

Participants And Setting: Palliative care patients from the inpatient units at two hospices, recruited between 1999 and 2002.