In a time of budgetary shortfalls in the medical industry, an aging population, and an increased emphasis on health care choices, psychologists are being called upon to administer advance medical directive programs to patients. This study reports preliminary findings from a program to assess and facilitate patients' knowledge of advance directives (ADs) by the Psychology Service at the Ann Arbor VA Medical Center. The participant pool included 243 male veteran patients admitted to medical and surgical wards at the hospital. The intervention included the use of a computer-generated prompt for consultation, which was sent to the psychology staff in response to a patient inquiry regarding ADs. It also involved an increased emphasis on the delivery of written material on ADs by the admissions clerks. The intervention appeared to result in a modest increase in patients' knowledge of advance directives. Suggestions are offered for areas that should be emphasized in future attempts to increase patients' knowledge and utilization of advance directives.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF01996131DOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

patients' knowledge
16
advance directives
16
knowledge advance
12
increased emphasis
8
increase patients'
8
advance
5
medical
5
psychologist's role
4
role assessing
4
assessing facilitating
4

Similar Publications

Background: The PalliPed project is a nationwide, observational, cross-sectional study designed with the aim of providing a constantly updated national database for the census and monitoring of specialized pediatric palliative care (PPC) activities in Italy. This paper presents the results of the first monitoring phase of the PalliPed project, which was developed through the PalliPed 2022-2023 study, to update current knowledge on the provision of specialized PPC services in Italy.

Methods: Italian specialized PPC centers/facilities were invited to participate and asked to complete a self-reporting, ad-hoc, online survey regarding their clinical activity in 2022-2023, in the revision of the data initially collected in the first PalliPed study of 2021.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Drug-drug interactions (DDIs) especially antagonistic ones present significant risks to patient safety, underscoring the urgent need for reliable prediction methods. Recently, substructure-based DDI prediction has garnered much attention due to the dominant influence of functional groups and substructures on drug properties. However, existing approaches face challenges regarding the insufficient interpretability of identified substructures and the isolation of chemical substructures.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) associated with major vasculature tumor extension is considered an advanced stage of disease to which palliative radiotherapy or chemotherapy is proposed. Surgical resection associated with chemotherapy or chemoembolization could be an opportunity to improve overall survival and recurrence-free survival in selected cases in a high-volume hepatobiliary center. Moreover, it has been 25 years since Couinaud described the entity of a posterior liver located behind an axial plane crossing the portal bifurcation.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background And Objectives: Gingivitis and periodontitis are common periodontal diseases that can significantly harm overall oral health, affecting the teeth and their supporting tissues, along with the surrounding anatomical structures, and if left untreated, leading to the total destruction of the alveolar bone and the connective tissues, tooth loss, and other more serious systemic health issues. Numerous studies have shown that propolis can help reduce gum inflammation, inhibit the growth of pathogenic bacteria, and promote tissue regeneration, but with varying degrees of success reported. For this reason, this comprehensive systematic review aims at finding out the truth concerning the efficacy of propolis mouthwashes in treating gingivitis and periodontitis, as its main objective.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Trousseau's syndrome is a thromboembolic disorder associated with malignancies, with cerebral infarction and hemorrhage representing common central nervous system complications in patients with cancer. This report details the diagnosis and treatment of a patient with gastric adenocarcinoma at our institution who concurrently developed cerebral infarction and subarachnoid hemorrhage. We performed a comprehensive literature review in the Wanfang and PubMed databases, searching for relevant studies on Trousseau's syndrome, cerebral embolism, and subarachnoid hemorrhage.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!