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| 2. |
- Melin-Johansson, Christina, et al.
(författare)
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Significant improvement in quality of life of patients with incurable cancer after designation to a palliative homecare team
- 2010
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Ingår i: European Journal of Cancer Care. - : Hindawi Limited. - 0961-5423 .- 1365-2354. ; 19:2, s. 243-250
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aims of this study were to describe and compare quality of life (QOL) before and after designation to a palliative homecare team (PHT) in patients with different cancer diagnoses and to identify pre-designation predictors of post-designation global QOL. We measured patients� QOL one week before designation and 11 days (median time) after with the Assessment of Quality of life at the End of Life (AQEL). Of 163 eligible patient 63 participated without attrition. Patients� QOL improved in the physical, psychological, medical and global areas. Six items significantly improved: hours recumbent during the day (p=.009), nausea (p=.008), anxiety (p=.007), getting hold of staff (p=.000), received care (p=.003) and global QOL (p=.023). Depression/low in mood (r=.55) and meaningfulness (r=.70) associated to global QOL. Furthermore, pain (p=.028) and meaningfulness (p=.028) predicted global QOL. In the existential area, it is important to further explore how meaningfulness is associated to and predicts global QOL.
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| 3. |
- Melin Johansson, Titti, et al.
(författare)
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Caregivers' perceptions about terminally ill family members' quality of life
- 2007
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Ingår i: European Journal of Cancer Care. - : Hindawi Limited. - 0961-5423 .- 1365-2354. ; 16:4, s. 338-345
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Caregivers' perceptions on terminally ill family members' quality of life is rarely described. The aim of this study was to describe caregivers' perceptions about terminally ill family members' quality of life when suffering from cancer. Four caregivers participated in repeated focus group, and the data were analysed using qualitative content analysis. The findings were presented through five themes: 'living a normal life', 'being relieved from burdens', 'having a sense of belonging', 'being a symbol of incurable illness' and 'having a sense of dignity'. We found that to manage daily life it was significant to keep up a normal life and participate in social life. One new insight in this study was that caregivers contributed to an extending understanding to the term meaning in which the sense of belonging was fundamental. An obstacle for the sense of belonging was illuminated as the visible signs of incurable illness that stigmatized the ill person, and influenced the dignity. This study highlights the importance of supportive actions from significant others and healthcare professionals for terminally ill family members' quality of life.
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| 4. |
- Melin Johansson, Titti, et al.
(författare)
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The meaning of quality of life: narrations by patients with incurable cancer in palliative home care
- 2008
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Ingår i: Palliative & Supportive Care. - 1478-9515 .- 1478-9523. ; 6:3, s. 231-238
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- OBJECTIVE: The objective of this qualitative study was to elucidate the meaning of quality of life as narrated by patients with incurable cancer approaching death in palliative home care in Sweden. METHODS: To gain a deeper understanding of what quality of life means for dying patients, data were collected from narrative interviews with eight patients in their homes in 2004-2006. Qualitative content analysis was used to interpret the meaning regarding quality of life. RESULTS: Three main themes were found: being in intense suffering, having breathing space in suffering, and being at home. Living with incurable cancer at the end of life was experienced as living in physical distress as the body became incapacitated by unexpected physical complications. This incapacity had consequences on patients' psychological, social, and existential well-being. As the complication phase abated, the patients experienced that they regained hopefulness and had time to reflect on existential issues. Patients were provided affirmative care at home from family caregivers and the palliative home care team. SIGNIFICANCE OF RESULTS: This study shows that it is feasible to perform individual interviews with patients approaching death and elucidate the meaning of patients' quality of life in palliative home care. Patients oscillate between being in intense suffering and having breathing space in this suffering, which somewhat opposes the traditional picture of a continuous linear deterioration. Being cared for at home by family caregivers and health care professionals provided a sense of independency and security. Being at home safeguards patients' entire life situation and increases quality of life.
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- Larsson, Anne, 1972-
(författare)
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Corrections for improved quantitative accuracy in SPECT and planar scintigraphic imaging
- 2005
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- A quantitative evaluation of single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and planar scintigraphic imaging may be valuable for both diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. For an accurate quantification it is usually necessary to correct for attenuation and scatter and in some cases also for septal penetration. For planar imaging a background correction for the contribution from over- and underlying tissues is needed. In this work a few correction methods have been evaluated and further developed. Much of the work relies on the Monte Carlo method as a tool for evaluation and optimisation. A method for quantifying the activity of I-125 labelled antibodies in a tumour inoculated in the flank of a mouse, based on planar scintigraphic imaging with a pin-hole collimator, has been developed and two different methods for background subtraction have been compared. The activity estimates of the tumours were compared with measurements in vitro. The major part of this work is attributed to SPECT. A method for attenuation and scatter correction of brain SPECT based on computed tomography (CT) images of the same patient has been developed, using an attenuation map calculated from the CT image volume. The attenuation map is utilised not only for attenuation correction, but also for scatter correction with transmission dependent convolution subtraction (TDCS). A registration method based on fiducial markers, placed on three chosen points during the SPECT examination, was evaluated. The scatter correction method, TDCS, was then optimised for regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) SPECT with Tc-99m, and was also compared with a related method, convolution scatter subtraction (CSS). TDCS has been claimed to be an iterative technique. This requires however some modifications of the method, which have been demonstrated and evaluated for a simulation with a point source. When the Monte Carlo method is used for evaluation of corrections for septal penetration, it is important that interactions in the collimator are taken into account. A new version of the Monte Carlo program SIMIND with this capability has been evaluated by comparing measured and simulated images and energy spectra. This code was later used for the evaluation of a few different methods for correction of scatter and septal penetration of I-123 brain SPECT. The methods were CSS, TDCS and a method where correction for scatter and septal penetration are included in the iterative reconstruction. This study shows that quantitative accuracy in I-123 brain SPECT benefits from separate modelling of scatter and septal penetration.
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- Martinsson, Lisa, et al.
(författare)
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Patients' perspectives on information from physicians during palliative chemotherapy : A qualitative study
- 2016
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Ingår i: Palliative & Supportive Care. - 1478-9515 .- 1478-9523. ; 14:5, s. 495-502
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- OBJECTIVE:During the course of their disease, patients with cancer receiving palliative chemotherapy receive extensive amounts of information from physicians. The objective of our study was to describe patients' perspectives on the information they received from physicians during palliative chemotherapy with regard to their cancer diagnosis, treatments, prognosis, and future planning.METHOD:A total of 15 semistructured face-to-face interviews with patients who had incurable cancer were conducted, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed with qualitative content analysis.RESULTS:Three categories were defined during the analytical process: "having a chronic disease," "depending on chemotherapy," and "living with an unpredictable future."SIGNIFICANCE OF RESULTS:Our study demonstrated that patients undergoing palliative chemotherapy perceived that their disease was incurable and chronic, that they were dependent on chemotherapy, and that their future was uncertain. Compared with other studies, the patients in our study seemed to be more aware of their prognosis and the goals of care.
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| 8. |
- Martinsson, Lisa, 1985-
(författare)
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Quality improvement in palliative care : the role of a national quality register and perceptions of information during palliative chemotherapy
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- IntroductionThere is a need in palliative care for development of structured methods to assess quality and support improvement. This need is present both within and outside specialised palliative care.Honest information from physicians is regarded as an important part of palliative care. Information about the transition to end-of-life care (ITEOL), conveyed by physicians to patients, has also been described as a ‘breakpoint conversation’.Quality registers enable monitoring and improvement of quality of care, and clinical research. The Swedish Register of Palliative Care (SRPC) is a Swedish national quality register that collects data from hospitals, hospices, nursing homes and home care, with an end-of-life questionnaire (ELQ) about palliative care content focusing on the last week of life.AimsStudy I – The aim was to examine the validity of the ELQ from the SRPC.Study II – The aim was to examine whether participation in the SRPC increases the quality of palliative care over a three-year period regarding eight items in the ELQ.Study III – The aim was to examine whether an educational intervention for physicians and nurses in nursing homes and hospitals increases the proportion of patients who receive ITEOL.Study IV – The aim was to describe how patients with cancer perceive the information they receive from physicians during palliative chemotherapy.MethodsStudy I – Data from 100 medical records and data from the paper versions of the ELQ filled in at a specialised palliative unit were compared with data reported to the SRPC.Study II – Data from eight items in the ELQ reported to the SRPC from all healthcare units that had reported patients continuously during a three-year period were compared year-by-year with logistic regression.Study III – Two municipalities (in charge of nursing homes) and two hospitals were randomised to receive an interactive half-day course about ITEOL for physicians and nurses. Four hospitals and four municipalities were assigned matched controls. The proportion of patients who received ITEOL before and after the intervention was measured with the ELQ. The effect of the intervention was analysed with a multivariable logistic regression model.Study IV – Fifteen semi-structured interviews with patients with incurable cancer were conducted, transcribed verbatim and analysed with qualitative content analysis.ResultsStudy I – The questions in the ELQ showed a congruity of 22% to 100% when comparing data from medical records with data reported to the SRPC. Eight questions fell below 80%. The paper versions filled in at the unit and the data reported to the SRPC showed a congruity of between 91% and 100%.Study II – The prevalence of six symptoms decreased. The prescription of PRN (pro re nata – ‘as needed’) medications for pain, nausea, anxiety and death rattle increased. A higher proportion of patients died in their place of preference. The patient’s next of kin was more often offered a follow-up appointment after the patient’s death. There was no change in the proportion of patients or next of kin who received ITEOL.Study III – The proportion of patients in the intervention group who received ITEOL increased from 35.1% (during a six-month period before the intervention) to 42.0% (during a six-month period after the intervention). The proportion in the control group increased from 30.4% to 33.7%. The effect of the intervention was significant (p=0.005) in the multivariable model.Study IV – Three categories were disclosed during the analytical process: ‘living with a death sentence’, ‘depending on chemotherapy’, and ‘living with uncertainty’.ConclusionsA national quality register has the potential of contributing to quality improvement in palliative care. Study I showed varied validity in the ELQ, implying a need to modify the questionnaire. Study II showed that participation in the SRPC was covariant with quality improvements in end-of-life care over time. Study III showed that more patients received ITEOL after an educative half-day intervention directed to physicians and nurses. Study IV showed that patients undergoing palliative chemotherapy perceived that their disease was incurable and deadly, and that conditions for future treatment and survival were uncertain.
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| 9. |
- Starlander, Jan, et al.
(författare)
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Oral-parenteral conversion factor for morphine in palliative cancer care : a prospective randomized crossover pilot study
- 2011
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Ingår i: Pain Research and Treatment. - : Hindawi Publishing Corporation. - 2090-1550 .- 2090-1542. ; , s. 504034-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Objective. This pilot study clinically tests whether a conversion factor of 2 to 1 is appropriate when changing from oral to parenteral morphine administration in the treatment of cancer-related nociceptive pain and calculates the size of an adequately powered future study.Methods. Eleven outpatients with incurable cancer and well-controlled nociceptive pain were randomly assigned to either intravenous or subcutaneous morphine using half the previous oral 24-hour dose. Each group crossed over after the first three-day period. Serum concentrations of morphine and its metabolites were monitored as well as intensity of pain.Results. Oral to subcutaneous and oral to intravenous quotas of morphine concentrations were approximately 0.9. Subcutaneous to intravenous morphine quotas were 1.Conclusions. The conversion factor of 2 to 1 seems to be a reasonable average but with an obvious need for individual adjustments. Concurrent medications and substantially higher doses of morphine could potentially affect the appropriate conversion factor. An adequately powered study to validate these findings would need at least 121 patients.
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| 10. |
- Udo, Camilla
(författare)
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Existential issues in surgical care : Nurses’ experiences and attitudes in caring for patients with cancer
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The overall aim of this thesis was to explore surgical nurses’ experiences of being confronted with patients’ existential issues when caring for patients with cancer, and to examine whether an educational intervention may support nurses in addressing existential needs when caring for patients with cancer. Previously recorded discussions from supervision sessions with eight healthcare professionals were analysed (I), written descriptions of critical incidents were collected from 10 nurses, and interviews with open questions were conducted (II). An educational intervention on existential issues was pilot tested and is presented in Studies III and IV. The intervention was the basis of a pilot study with the purpose of testing whether the whole design of the educational intervention, including measurements instruments, is appropriate. In Study III and IV interviews with 11 nurses were conducted and 42 nurses were included in the quantitative measurements of four questionnaires, which were distributed and collected. Data was analysed using qualitative secondary analysis (I), hermeneutical analysis (II), and mixed methods using qualitative content analysis and statistical analyses (III-IV). Results in all studies show that existential issues are part of caring at surgical wards. However, although the nurses were aware of them, they found it difficult to acknowledge these issues owing to for example insecurity (I-III), a strict medical focus (II) and/or lacking strategies (I-III) for communicating on these issues. Modest results from the pilot study are reported and suggest beneficial influences of a support in communication on existential issues (III). The results indicate that the educational intervention may enhance nurses’ understanding for the patient’s situation (IV), help them deal with own insecurity and powerlessness in communication (III), and increase the value of caring for severely ill and dying patients (III) in addition to reducing work-related stress (IV). An outcome of all the studies in this thesis was that surgical nurses consider it crucial to have time and opportunity to reflect on caring situations together with colleagues. In addition, descriptions in Studies III and IV show the value of relating reflection to a theory or philosophy in order for attitudes to be brought to awareness and for new strategies to be developed.
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