[Nursing staff's knowledge and attitudes concerning preventive oral hygiene in palliative care].

Preventive mouth care is essential for the well-being of palliative care patients, though it is not performed enough outside units devoted to these patients. Our study aimed at getting a better knowledge of carers' attitudes and knowledge regarding this basic care. A validated questionnaire was sent anonymously to nurses and nursing aides working in the medical units of ten hospitals in Brittany.

Oral care in nursing practice: a pragmatic representation.

Oral care for patients receiving non-specialist palliative care has been reported to be lacking in several respects. The present study explored the oral care social representation of nurses and health-care assistants providing non-specialist palliative care. A mixed methodology utilising a questionnaire and focus groups was adopted.

[Supporting palliative care patients].

Since the early days of the discipline, the fundamental principles of palliative care have been focusing on recognizing patient "overall suffering" and the necessity for caregivers to work as a team. Besides curative medicine, it becomes necessary to acknowledge a caring medicine which, based on the relationship to the sick one, aims at establishing with the latter a real life project until their very last days. To the patient, considered as a "subject of care", a man or a woman living up to the very last breath, the team will offer supportive care, quality of life, individualized care, in a climate of real confidence, an essential component of any relationship.