SummaryTo evaluate the effects on the family of a comprehensive programme of terminal cancer care,`20 close relatives of patients who had died in a Palliative Care Unit (PCU) were compared with a matched group of 20 relatives of patients who had died of cancer in other wards of the same teaching hospital.Interviewed by telephone 1 year and 2 weeks after bereavement, relatives of PCU patients report significantly fewer psychological symptoms and less lasting grief and anger than relatives of patients who had died elsewhere.Factors thought to have contributed to good outcomes were successful relief of pain, awareness by relatives of the coming death of the patient and support given to relatives after bereavement. Two case examples illustrate these findings.
Patients willingly consent to share data with unscheduled care clinicians. Patients benefitting include those with palliative, complex or multiple conditions, at high risk of using emergency services. Out-of-hours clinicians would welcome more key information summaries, all well-completed and including social care information. Improvements include software enhancements and wider sharing of information with all unscheduled care services.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.