Background: Dignity is a key element in end-of-life care. Patients with advanced illness attend the emergency department to seek symptom relief but may find their dignity under threat in these services.

Objective: The purpose of the study was to explore the threats to dignity perceived by people with advanced illnesses who are treated in emergency departments.

Methods: A descriptive qualitative study was designed for which 18 patients with advanced illnesses were interviewed after being seen in an emergency department. The study complied with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki for medical research involving human subjects.

Results: Two themes were developed from the data analysis that shed light on how patients with advanced illnesses perceive threats to their dignity when seen in emergency departments: (1) "when care focused on diagnosis and treatment limits the dignity of the patient with advanced illness" and (2) "the social dimension of dignity in people with advanced illness in emergency departments".

Conclusions: We conclude that the structural, organizational, and care characteristics of emergency departments may pose a threat to the dignity of people with advanced illnesses who attend the emergency department. Family members, professionals, and other patients can both guarantee and threaten the dignity of people with advanced illnesses when they are treated in emergency departments.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/healthcare12242581DOI Listing
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11727746PMC

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

people advanced
20
advanced illnesses
20
dignity people
16
emergency departments
16
threats dignity
12
advanced illness
12
treated emergency
12
patients advanced
12
emergency department
12
advanced
9

Similar Publications

Objective: Underserved populations are often at risk of experiencing systematic healthcare disparities. Existing disparities in care access, quality of care received, and treatment outcomes among patients with rheumatic disease are not well understood.

Methods: We conducted a targeted literature review to understand disparities in health outcomes, treatment patterns, and healthcare management faced by rheumatology patients in the United States, with a focus on rheumatoid arthritis (RA), psoriatic arthritis (PsA), and ankylosing spondylitis (AS).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

With the ongoing development of osteoimmunology, increasing evidence indicates that the local immune microenvironment plays a critical role in various stages of bone formation. Consequently, modulating the immune inflammatory response triggered by biomaterials to foster a more favorable immune microenvironment for bone regeneration has emerged as a novel strategy in bone tissue engineering. This review first examines the roles of various immune cells in bone tissue injury and repair.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Autoimmune enteropathy (AIE) is a rare immune mediated disorder primarily affecting children, characterized by chronic diarrhea, malabsorption, vomiting, weight loss and villous atrophy. It has also been observed in adults presenting diagnostic and treatment challenges due to its overlap with other gastrointestinal disorders such as celiac disease. Initial diagnostic criteria for AIE include small bowel villous atrophy, lack of response to dietary restrictions, presence of anti-enterocyte antibodies, and predisposition to autoimmunity without severe immunodeficiency.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

3D-printed constructs deliver bioactive cargos to expedite cartilage regeneration.

J Pharm Anal

December 2024

State Key Laboratory of Targeting Oncology, National Center for International Research of Bio-targeting Theranostics, Guangxi Key Laboratory of Bio-targeting Theranostics, Collaborative Innovation Center for Targeting Tumor Diagnosis and Therapy, Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, China.

Cartilage is solid connective tissue that recovers slowly from injury, and pain and dysfunction from cartilage damage affect many people. The treatment of cartilage injury is clinically challenging and there is no optimal solution, which is a hot research topic at present. With the rapid development of 3D printing technology in recent years, 3D bioprinting can better mimic the complex microstructure of cartilage tissue and thus enabling the anatomy and functional regeneration of damaged cartilage.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Unlabelled: Ongoing research in biosensor technologies has led to advanced functional materials for healthcare diagnostics, and bacteriophages (phages), demonstrating exceptional utility due to their high specificity, accuracy, rapid, label-free, and wireless detection capabilities with minimal false-positive results. Phage-based-pathogen-detecting biosensors (PBPDBs) include surface plasmon resonance (SPR) biosensors, magnetoelastic (ME), electrochemical, and quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) biosensors. Commonly used substrates for PBPDBs are gold, silicon, glass, carbon-based materials, magnetic particles, and quantum dots.

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!