Dimensions of suffering and the need for palliative care: experiences and expectations of patients living with cancer and diabetes and their caregivers in Mexico – a qualitative study

Objectives
Over 40 million people in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) experience serious health-related suffering (SHS) annually and require palliative care. Patient and caregiver experiences of SHS in LMICs are understudied despite their importance in guiding palliative care provision. Diabetes and cancer are the second-leading and third-leading causes of death in Mexico, causing a significant SHS burden on patients, families and health systems. This study examines SHS and palliative care from the point of view of patients with cancer and diabetes and their caregivers.

Design
A qualitative descriptive study based on in-depth telephone interviews was conducted between August 2021 and February 2022. Data were analysed through inductive thematic analysis.

Participants
Overall, 20 patients with end-stage cancer, 13 patients with diabetes and 35 family caregivers were interviewed individually.

Setting
Participants were recruited from two family medicine clinics and a pain clinic in Mexico City.

Results
Seven themes emerged: (1) suffering as a multifaceted phenomenon, (2) diversity in perceptions of suffering, (3) different coping strategies, (4) need and perceived importance of relief from suffering, (5) barriers to accessing services to relieve suffering, (6) demand for the health sector’s active and humane role in addressing suffering and (7) preferences and need for comprehensive care for relief from suffering. The primary coping strategies included family companionship, protective buffering and faith-based support. Participants lacked knowledge of palliative care. They expressed the importance of relief from suffering, viewing it as the health sector’s responsibility and requesting more humane, personalised care and access to medicines and pain clinics.

Conclusions
The multifaceted nature of SHS highlights the health system’s responsibility to provide high-quality palliative care. Policies to enhance access to palliative care should integrate it into primary care, redesigning services towards patient and caregiver biopsychosocial and spiritual needs and ensuring access to medicines and competent health personnel.

Leggi
Dicembre 2023

Non-pharmacological interventions in primary care to improve the quality of life of older patients with palliative care needs: a systematic review of randomised controlled trials

Objectives
Our systematic review aimed to summarise non-pharmacological interventions applicable in primary care that improve the quality of life of older patients with palliative care needs.

Design
Systematic review.

Primary and secondary outcome measures
The primary outcome was patients’ quality of life. Secondary outcomes were symptoms relief and patients’ well-being measures.

Methods and analysis
We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, Cochrane and CINAHL up to October 2022 for randomised controlled trials (RCTs). We also handsearched abstract books of relevant congresses and scientific meetings in the last 5 years. Screening, data extraction and quality evaluation (Cochrane risk-of-bias (RoB) V.2.0 tool and Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluations (GRADE)) were done independently by two reviewers, with disagreements solved by a third reviewer. Findings were narratively synthesised.

Results
We identified 4 RCTs, including 268 patients. One study used a broad criteria of palliative care needs (‘progressive, life-threatening disease’), two studies focused on advanced cancer and one study on heart failure. The non-pharmacological interventions evaluated were advance care planning conducted by general practitioners (GPs); social worker-aided palliative care; online primary palliative care training for GPs and spiritual history taking by nurses and GPs. No intervention showed a statistically significant impact on quality of life and the evidence was low according to GRADE.

Conclusion
The results highlight a dearth of evidence on what non-pharmacological interventions can be effectively done in primary care to improve the quality of life of older persons with palliative care needs. The results should be interpreted with caution, as the search more comprehensively covers interventions delivered by GPs.

PROSPERO registration number
CRD42020154216.

Leggi
Dicembre 2023

Correction: Physicians narratives of communication with patients and their relatives in different phases of the palliative pathway

Landstad BJ, Kvangarsnes M. Physicians’ narratives of communication with patients and their relatives in different phases of the palliative pathway. BMJ Open 2023;13:e065681. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2022-065681.
This article was previously published with an error.
The authors of this article wish to draw attention to the updated author list, which now includes an additional author. As such, the author list and the Contributor statement has been updated accordingly.

Leggi
Dicembre 2023

Palliative care interventions for patients with head and neck cancer: protocol for a scoping review

Introduction
A head and neck cancer (HNC) diagnosis significantly impacts a patient’s quality of life (QOL). Palliative care potentially improves their QOL. We will conduct a scoping review to identify existing knowledge about palliative care interventions for patients with HNC.

Methods and analysis
This scoping review was designed in accordance with the JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis: Scoping Reviews and will be reported according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews. Our eligibility criteria follow the Population, Intervention, Comparison or Control, Outcomes and Study characteristics framework. The population is adult patients with locally advanced, metastatic, unresectable and/or recurrent HNC. We include peer-reviewed journal articles and articles in the press, in English, reporting on palliative care interventions with at least two of the eight National Consensus Project on Clinical Practice Guidelines for Quality Palliative Care domains; studies with and without comparators will be included. The outcomes are patient QOL (primary) and symptom severity, patients’ satisfaction with care, patients’ mood, advance care planning and place of death (secondary). We developed a search strategy across ten databases, to be searched from the inception to 11 September 2023: Medline ALL (Medline and EPub Ahead of Print and In-Process, In-Data-Review & Other Non-Indexed Citations), Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Embase Classic+Embase, Emcare and PsycINFO all from the OvidSP platform; CINAHL from EBSCOhost, Scopus from Elsevier, Web of Science from Clarivate and Global Index Medicus from WHO. We will extract data using a piloted data form and analyse the data through descriptive statistics and thematic analysis.

Ethics and dissemination
Ethics approval is not needed for a scoping review. We will disseminate the findings to healthcare providers and policy-makers by publishing the results in a scientific journal.

Leggi
Novembre 2023