Background: Family carers have a prominent role in end-of-life care for seriously ill persons. However, most of the advance care planning literature is focused on the role of healthcare professionals.
Aims: To investigate (1) what proportion of family carers discussed advance care planning with their relative and associated socio-demographic and clinical characteristics (2) what proportion received support from healthcare professionals for these conversations, (3) what type of support they received and (4) to what extent the type of support received was considered sufficient.
Design/participants: Population-based cross-sectional survey in Belgium of bereaved family carers of persons with a serious chronic illness ( = 3000) who died 2-6 months before the sample was drawn, identified through three sickness funds. The survey explored support from healthcare professionals for family carers during the last 3 months of the patient's life.
Results: Response rate was 55%. The proportion of family carers that engaged in an advance care planning conversation with their relative was 46.9%. Of these family carers, 78.1% received support from a healthcare professional, mostly by doing the advance care planning conversation together (53.8%). Of family carers receiving support from a healthcare professional, 57.4% deemed the support sufficient.
Conclusion: Many family carers engage in advance care planning conversations with their dying relative. Healthcare professionals often support them by performing the advance care planning conversations together. More insight into how family carers can be supported to conduct these advance care planning conversations, both with and without involvement of healthcare professionals, is necessary.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/02692163221135032 | DOI Listing |
BMJ Open
January 2025
Department of Community Medicine and Family Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India.
Background: The avoidable causes of infant mortality should be identified, and interventions should be made to improve the infant mortality rate. The cause of infant deaths should be assessed in both medical and social contexts.
Objectives: We aimed to determine the medical causes of infant mortality by verbal autopsy and its determinants in two rural blocks of the Khordha district of Odisha and assess the pathway of care and delay in seeking care for the illness preceding infant death using the three-delay model.
BMJ Glob Health
January 2025
Sickle Cell Programme, Department of Haematology and Blood Transfusion, Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
Despite progress in healthcare services for individuals living with sickle cell disease (SCD) in Africa, substantial gaps remain in advanced treatments for SCD. To help address this burden, Tanzania has established one of the largest single-centre SCD programmes in the world and developed an advanced therapy programme for SCD focused on patient engagement and advocacy, clinical activities involving exchange blood transfusion (ExBT) and haematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT), gene therapy (GT) preparedness, and enabling partnerships. This report describes the programme's genesis, structure and progress achieved.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEffective communication is crucial in pediatric palliative care and is essential to facilitate shared decision making between families and the health care team. This study explored the communication preferences of caregivers and health care specialists in Central-Eastern Europe, a region with unique cultural and health care dynamics. Through qualitative interviews, key communication style preferences and barriers were identified.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAustralas J Ageing
March 2025
Department of Geriatric Medicine, Austin Health, Heidelberg, Victoria, Australia.
Objectives: Residential aged care respite clients are vulnerable and prone to poor health-care outcomes. Improvements in the quality of care for this cohort are urgently needed. However, before proposing changes in care models, a nuanced understanding of relevant issues affecting respite care consumers and professionals is required.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Evid Based Soc Work (2019)
January 2025
College of Social Work, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, US.
Purpose: This scoping review explored the nature and challenges of transnational family caregiving. International migration and global aging have resulted in growing instances of transnational family caregiving, which involves providing care for older adults across national borders. However, little is known about the realities of such caregiving.
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