Addressing Statistical Power and Increasing Diversity in Hospice Research: Electronic Medical Record Participant Identification Compared to Nurse Referral Approaches to Recruitment.

Context: Recruitment of targeted samples into hospice clinical trials is often challenging. While electronic medical records (EMR) are commonly used in hospital-based research, it is uncommon in hospice research. The community setting and the variability in hospices and their medical record creates unique challenges.

Anxiety sensitivity among Black youth: A cross-sectional analysis of the direct and indirect effects of community violence exposure, neighborhood risk, parenting practices, and peer effects.

Youth exposed to community violence and neighborhood stressors report devastating mental health consequences. Black youth are at greater risk and experience community violence at rates higher than other youth populations. An underexplored mental health consequence is anxiety sensitivity, the fear of experiencing anxiety-related symptoms, which contributes to maladaptive coping strategies and the development and severity of other mental health problems.

Parkinson's Disease Drug Therapies in the Clinical Trial Pipeline: 2024 Update.

Background: For the past five years, our annual reports have been tracking the clinical development of new drug-based therapies for the neurodegenerative condition of Parkinson's disease (PD). These reviews have followed the progress both of "symptomatic treatments" (ST - improves/reduces symptoms of the condition) and "disease-modifying treatments" (DMT - attempts to delay/slow progression by addressing the underlying biology of PD). Efforts have also been made to further categorize these experimental treatments based on their mechanisms of action and class of drug.

Does Family Functioning Matter? Understanding the Relationship Between Family Interactions and Depressive Symptoms for Caregivers of Cancer Patients.

Background: Caregivers of cancer patients are at increased risk of depression and other health challenges. There is limited understanding of the role of the caregiver's own family members in promoting or discouraging mental wellbeing. Family functioning conceptualizes how family members interact to promote a positive family environment and has the potential to impact caregiver mental health.

Loneliness, psychological distress, and the moderating effect of positive aspects of caregiving among cancer caregivers.

Purpose: Family caregivers of patients with cancer often experience both loneliness and symptoms of psychological distress, such as anxiety and depression. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the associations between loneliness and anxiety and loneliness and depression among family caregivers of patients with cancer and to investigate whether positive aspects of caregiving can have a moderating effect on these relationships.

Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional exploratory study using baseline data from an ongoing multisite clinical trial.

Identifying the Unmet Needs of People Living With Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: A National Survey to Inform Interdisciplinary Palliative Care.

This national survey builds on previous qualitative research examining potential palliative care needs among people living with ALS (pALS) by quantifying and investigating relationships among pALS' stage of illness progression; physical, emotional, social, spiritual, and intimacy-related concerns; advance care planning behaviors; perceptions of feeling heard and understood by healthcare providers; and overall quality of life. Researchers partnered with national organizations to recruit pALS to participate in a one-time survey comprising items from validated instruments (eg, the ALS Specific Quality of Life Instrument-Revised) and researcher-generated measures. Data were analyzed using logistic and linear regression.

Family Caregiver Communication and Perceptions of Involvement in Hospice Care.

The burden of caregiving for family members is significant and becomes particularly challenging at end of life, with negative effects on mental health, including anxiety and depression. Research has shown caregivers need better communication with their health care team. To evaluate the relationship between hospice team communication with caregivers and caregiver involvement in care.

Depressive Symptoms in Caregivers of Hospice Cancer Patients.

Family members and close friends provide countless hours of care for patients enrolled in hospice care. They do so without pay, often sacrificing their own financial well-being and health in the process. This study asks 4 research questions: (1) What is the prevalence and severity of depressive symptoms among caregivers of hospice cancer patients? (2) What demographic and contextual factors (such as relationship with patient) are related to the severity of depressive symptoms among caregivers of hospice cancer patients? (3) Are caregiver quality of life and caregiver burden associated with depressive symptoms? and (4) Is baseline depression associated with change in depression over time? This was a secondary analysis of data collected in a cluster randomized controlled trial.

Advanced Care Planning for Hospitalized Patients Following Clinician Notification of Patient Mortality by a Machine Learning Algorithm.

Importance: Goal-concordant care is an ongoing challenge in hospital settings. Identification of high mortality risk within 30 days may call attention to the need to have serious illness conversations, including the documentation of patient goals of care.

Objective: To examine goals of care discussions (GOCDs) in a community hospital setting with patients identified as having a high risk of mortality by a machine learning mortality prediction algorithm.

Access for Cancer Caregivers to Education and Support for Shared Decision Making (ACCESS) intervention: a cluster cross-over randomised clinical trial.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to test an intervention named ACCESS (Access for Cancer Caregivers to Education and Support for Shared Decision Making). The intervention uses private Facebook support groups to support and educate caregivers, preparing them to participate in shared decision-making during web-based hospice care plan meetings. The overall hypothesis behind the study was that family caregivers of hospice patients with cancer would experience lower anxiety and depression as a result of participating in an online Facebook support group and shared decision-making with hospice staff in a web-based care plan meeting.

Close but Not Close Enough: How Distance Caregiving is Associated with Hospice Family Caregiver Hospice Communication Experiences.

Half of hospice family caregivers report having unmet information needs, which can contribute to poor pain and symptom management, emergency department use, and hospice disenrollment for care-recipients and to caregiver strain and stress. Effective communication between hospice teams and family caregivers is critical yet communication inadequacies persist. Despite the growing prevalence of distance caregiving, including in hospice care, and the relationship between caregiver proximity and communication effectiveness, little is known about how caregiver proximity is associated with caregiver perceptions of hospice communication.

Hospice Social Work Preferences for the Delivery of Facebook Support Groups: A Discrete Choice Experiment.

Dissemination and implementation of evidence-based interventions is best accomplished with input from stakeholders. This project used a Discrete Choice Experiment to determine the preferences of a nationwide sample of hospice social workers toward the most preferred way to scale the delivery of an online support group. While the majority of social workers preferred referring caregivers to online support groups facilitated outside their agency rather than to facilitate groups themselves, the results were not statistically significant.

Problem-Solving Dimensions among Caregivers of People with Cancer Receiving Outpatient Palliative Care.

Family caregivers of people with cancer encounter a wide range of problems including challenges managing patients' symptoms, difficulties navigating complex healthcare systems, and financial stressors associated with caregiving. Outpatient palliative care teams are ideally positioned to help caregivers respond to these challenges; however, little evidence is available to inform problem-solving support for caregivers in this setting. This article presents results from a secondary analysis of data obtained as part of a randomized clinical trial of a problem-solving intervention for family caregivers of people with cancer receiving outpatient palliative care.

"It was terrible, I didn't sleep for two years": A mixed methods exploration of sleep and its effects among family caregivers of in-home hospice patients at end-of-life.

Background: Due to overnight caregiving demands; exacerbation of high rates of anxiety, depression, and distress; and inadequate support, millions of family caregivers of patients receiving in-home hospice are at risk of poor sleep and negative health effects.

Aim: To describe sleep experiences of family caregivers of in-home hospice patients and perceptions of these experiences on caregivers' wellbeing in the context of caregiver health and live-in status.

Design: Developed using the Symptom Management Model, this mixed methods study featured a concurrent nested design prioritizing qualitative reflexive thematic analysis.

Family caregiving experiences with hospice lung cancer patients compared to other cancer types.

Background: Family caregivers of cancer patients are very involved in communication with healthcare teams; however, little is known about their experiences. Limited information is known about how the type of cancer patients have impact caregiving experiences.

Objectives: This study seeks to compare the caregiving experience of caregivers of hospice lung cancer patients with hospice caregivers of patients with all other cancer types.

Family Members' Perceptions of Caregiver-Centered Communication with Hospice Interdisciplinary Teams: Relationship to Caregiver Wellbeing.

Objective: Investigators sought to determine how family caregivers' psychological and physical wellbeing influenced their perceptions of communication with hospice providers.

Methods: Researchers conducted a secondary analysis of quantitative data generated during two multisite randomized clinical trials of supportive interventions for hospice family caregivers. Caregivers' (N = 525) self-reported anxious symptoms, depressive symptoms, physical quality of life, and perceptions of communication with hospice providers were analyzed via a series of linear models that included demographic and contextual controls.

Older Adult Engagement With Facebook Interventions: A Challenge for Nursing Research.

Facebook is a popular platform for older adults, especially as they try to stay in contact with their family around the country. It is also a popular platform for hosting online support groups. The readily available, socially acceptable, and free platform holds many advantages not only for older adults but also for nurse researchers designing and implementing interventions for older adults.

Reliability and Validity Testing of the Caregiver-Centered Communication Questionnaire.

The purpose of this study is to test the reliability and construct validity of a new instrument, the Caregiver-Centered Communication Questionnaire (CCCQ), designed to assess the extent to which family caregivers feel their perspectives and needs are appropriately acknowledged and addressed by the healthcare team. We administered the CCCQ to adult family caregivers of hospice patients. We calculated Cronbach's alpha and performed structural equation modeling.

Access to Services from Persons with Disabilities in Afghanistan: Is Community Based Rehabilitation Making a Difference?

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), ratified in 2006, states that the achievement of equal rights, empowerment, and social inclusion of people with disabilities requires comprehensive rehabilitation services involving educational, social, economic, and medical interventions, all dimensions of the World Health Organization Community based rehabilitation (CBR) matrix. CBR programs aim at achieving those goals. In the present study, we investigated whether a large scale CBR program is improving access to multiple services (namely physical therapy, assistive technology, education, employment, advocacy, and community awareness) and providing satisfactions (by measuring the reduction in unmet needs) of Afghans with disabilities.

Insomnia Symptoms Among Hospice Family Caregivers: Prevalence and Association with Caregiver Mental and Physical Health, Quality of Life, and Caregiver Burden.

Background: Poor sleep exacerbates mental health problems and reduces quality-of-life (QOL) but prevalence of insomnia symptoms among hospice family caregivers and associations of poor sleep with caregiver health and QOL outcomes are not known.

Objective: To describe prevalence of insomnia symptoms among hospice family caregivers and compare anxiety, depression, self-rated health, QOL, and caregiver burden between hospice family caregivers with and without insomnia symptoms.

Methods: Descriptive sub-study using data collected during baseline interviews of hospice family caregivers involved in a randomized clinical trial in Midwestern United States (xxxxxxxx).

Multicenter Evaluation of the Acuitas AMR Gene Panel for Detection of an Extended Panel of Antimicrobial Resistance Genes among Bacterial Isolates.

The Acuitas antimicrobial resistance (AMR) gene panel is a qualitative, multiplex, nucleic acid-based diagnostic test for the detection and differentiation of 28 antimicrobial resistance markers associated with not susceptible results (NS; i.e., intermediate or resistant) to one or more antimicrobial agents among cultured isolates of select , Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Enterococcus faecalis.

Mixed methods analysis of hospice staff perceptions and shared decision making practices in hospice.

Purpose: Shared decision making has been a long-standing practice in oncology and, despite a lack of research on the subject, is a central part of the philosophical foundation of hospice. This mixed methods study examined the perceptions of staff regarding shared decision making and their use of shared decision elements in hospice interdisciplinary team meetings.

Methods: The revised Leeds Attitude to Concordance scale (LatConII) was used to measure the attitudes of hospice staff toward shared decision making.

Exposure to community violence and depressive symptoms: Examining community, family, and peer effects among public housing youth.

Exposure to community violence is an epidemic problem that causes debilitating effects on youth mental health. However, the relationships between violence exposure and youth mental health remain unclear when examining co-occurring socioecological risk and protective factors. The purpose of this study is to clarify the observed gaps in knowledge by utilizing structural equation modeling (SEM) to examine the mediating role of community violence exposure on the relationship between perceived neighborhood risk factors, parental behaviors, and peers on depressive symptoms in a sample of urban youth in low-income public housing communities (n = 320).