Factors Predicting Bereaved Caregiver Perception of Quality of Care in the Final Week of Life: Implications for Health Care Providers.

Background: Cancer caregivers are key stakeholders in the final weeks of life and in bereavement. Research has highlighted end-of-life (EOL) factors important to caregivers, as well as factors contributing to caregiver mental health and bereavement outcomes. There has been limited data on factors predicting caregiver perceptions of quality of EOL care.

Delivering palliative care to patients and caregivers in inner-city communities: challenges and opportunities.

Objective: Social and economic barriers can hinder access to quality palliative and end-of-life care for patients living in inner-city communities. Using a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach, we investigated the stresses associated with living with a chronic disease and barriers to access and utilization of palliative care resources experienced by low-income patients and caregivers in five inner-city communities.

Methods: Four focus groups (N = 33) were conducted with community stakeholders, including healthcare professionals (social workers and nurses), persons living with chronic illnesses (e.

Caregiver evaluation of the quality of end-of-life care (CEQUEL) scale: the caregiver's perception of patient care near death.

Purpose: End-of-life (EOL) measures are limited in capturing caregiver assessment of the quality of EOL care. Because none include caregiver perception of patient suffering or prolongation of death, we sought to develop and validate the Caregiver Evaluation of Quality of End-of-Life Care (CEQUEL) scale to include these dimensions of caregiver-perceived quality of EOL care.

Patients And Methods: Data were derived from Coping with Cancer (CwC), a multisite, prospective, longitudinal study of advanced cancer patients and their caregivers (N = 275 dyads).

Palliative sedation: an essential place for clinical excellence.

The complexities that converge around palliative sedation invite clinicians to work together to differentiate the issues and come to recommendations and decisions that are humane, ethical, legal, and clinically sound. Whether a crisis or long-term situation exists, the work is essentially the same. It must include critical thinking, clinical expertise, multidimensional assessment, and an array of interventions to assist patients and families in situations where symptoms and suffering are sufficiently intense to warrant exploration of sedation.