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Background: The public's view of palliative care often involves its potential to improve of quality-of-life as well as its use as a last resource prior to death. Objective: To obtain an idea of the image of palliative care held by the public in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, the authors sought to understand (1) the perceptions of palliative care and the (2) elements important when thinking about their own end of life. Methods and Sample: A qualitative design with an inductive reasoning approach based on Mayring (2014) was chosen. Visitors at an exhibition about palliative care in six locations provided hand-written answers on provided cards to two statements: (1) if I hear the term 'Palliative Care' I think of ... and (2) when thinking about my own end of life, the following is important to me ... Results: Answers of 199 visitors (mean age 52, mostly in a good/very good health status) were analysed. In response to hearing the term palliative care, six areas were categorized: (1) the main focus; (2) ways of providing palliative care; (3) the best timing; (4) places where palliative care is provided; (5) who is seen as provider and (6) outcomes of palliative care. Five categories to the statement about their own end-of-life were identified: (1) the ability to look back on a fulfilled life and being satisfied; (2) maintaining trusting relationships until the end; (3) organizing affairs and having everything settled; (4) having their family being cared for and (5) relief of suffering with the support of knowledgeable people. Conclusion: Palliative care was mostly associated with positive terms acknowledging an interprofessional approach. Maintaining one's dignity as well as dying without suffering pointed at the persisting stigma that palliative care is mainly limited to end-of-life care. The results may help healthcare professionals to better understand how the public view palliative care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: International oncology societies recommend early palliative care. Specific models to integrate early palliative care efficiently into clinical practice are debated. The authors designed a study to look at the quantitative and qualitative outcomes of an early palliative care intervention in oncological care to decrease stress and improve quality of life. Aims: To compare a single structured early palliative care intervention added to a usual oncology care in terms of distress and health-related quality of life at baseline compared to 6 months after enrollment. Design: This multicenter randomized controlled trial (NCT01983956) enrolled adult patients with advanced cancer. Participants were either randomly assigned to usual oncology care alone or usual care plus a structured early palliative care intervention. Setting/participants: One hundred fifty adult patients with a variety of advanced cancer diagnoses were randomized. Seventy-four participants were in the intervention and 76 participants in the control group. The primary outcome was the change in patient distress assessed by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network distress thermometer at 6 months. Health-related quality of life, the secondary outcome, was assessed by the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy–General Questionnaire. Results: The results showed no significant effect of the early palliative care intervention neither on patient distress nor on health-related quality of life. Conclusion: The addition of an early intervention to usual care for patients with advanced cancer did not improve distress or quality of life. Thus, patients may need more intensive early palliative care with continuous professional support to identify and address their palliative needs early. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Nurses' end of life (EoL) care focuses on direct (eg, physical) and indirect (e,g, coordination) care. Little is known about how much time nurses actually devote to these activities and if activities change due to support by specialized palliative care (SPC) in hospitalized patients. Aims: (1) Comparing care time for EoL patients receiving SPC to usual palliative care (UPC);(2) Comparing time spent for direct/indirect care in the SPC group before and after SPC. Methods: Retrospective observational study; nursing care time for EoL patients based on tacs® data using nonparametric and parametric tests. The Swiss data method tacs measures (in)direct nursing care time for monitoring and cost analyses. Results: Analysis of tacs® data (UPC, n = 642; SPC, n = 104) during hospitalization before death in 2015. Overall, SPC patients had higher tacs® than UPC patients by 40 direct (95% confidence interval [CI]: 5.7-75, P =.023) and 14 indirect tacs® (95% CI: 6.0-23, P <.001). No difference for tacs® by day, as SPC patients were treated for a longer time (mean number of days 7.2 vs 16, P <.001).Subanalysis for SPC patients showed increased direct care time on the day of and after SPC (P <.001), whereas indirect care time increased only on the day of SPC. Conclusions: This study gives insight into nurses' time for (in)direct care activities with/without SPC before death. The higher (in)direct nursing care time in SPC patients compared to UPC may reflect higher complexity. Consensus-based measurements to monitor nurses' care activities may be helpful for benchmarking or reimbursement analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose of review The aim of this review is to critically appraise the existing evidence on ‘early palliative care’ (EPC), discuss its relationship with advance care planning, and to reflect on the impact of EPC on the quality of care provided during the last days of life. Recent findings There are indicators that EPC may help to avoid aggressive treatment, shorten hospital stay, improve overall quality of life, and to see more frequently dying and death at the preferred place of care. Summary The evidence from randomized controlled trials supports the integration of palliative care early in the disease trajectory. However, in terms of outcomes and quality indicators for care in the last days of life, evidence is still lacking. Predominantly, when it comes to the outcomes which may be more difficult to assess, such as spiritual aspects, or the social network, for which more comprehensive information is needed. These outcomes should not be neglected in palliative care studies, particularly when they can provide meaningful information about patient and family adjustment, and focus on psychosocial aspects rather than physical symptom control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anticipatory planning for end of life requires a common language for discussion among patients, families, and professionals. Studies show that early Palliative Care (PC) interventions based on a problem-oriented approach can improve quality of life, support decision-making, and optimize the timing of medical treatment and transition to hospice services. The aim of this quality-improvement project was to develop a pragmatic structure meeting all clinical settings and populations needs. Based on the Medical Research Council (MRC) framework, a literature review identifying approaches commonly used in PC was performed. In addition, more than 500 hospital-based interprofessional consultations were analyzed. Identified themes were structured and compared to published approaches. We evaluated the clinical usefulness of this structure with an online survey among professionals. The emerged 'SENS'-structure stands for: Symptoms patients suffer from; End-of-life decisions; Network around the patient delivering care; and Support for the carer. Evaluation among professionals has confirmed that the 'SENS'-structure covers all relevant areas for anticipatory planning in PC. 'SENS' is useful in guiding patient-centered PC conversations and pragmatic anticipatory planning, alongside the regular diagnosis-triggered approach in various settings. Following this approach, 'SENS' may facilitate systematic integration of PC in clinical practice. Depending on clearly defined outcomes, this needs to be confirmed by future randomized controlled studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Early integration of palliative care into oncology care has shown positive effects on patient symptoms and quality of life. It may also reduce health care costs. However given the heterogeneity of settings and interventions and the lack of information on the minimally effective dose for influencing care utilisation and costs, it remains uncertain whether early palliative care reduces costs., Objectives: We sought to determine whether an early palliative care intervention integrated in usual oncology care in a Swiss hospital setting reduced utilisation and costs of health care in the last month of life when compared with usual oncology care alone., Methods: We performed a cost-consequences analysis alongside a multicentre trial. We extracted costs from administrative health insurance data and health care utilisation from family caregiver surveys to compare two study arms: usual oncology care and usual oncology care plus the palliative care intervention. The intervention consisted of a single-structured, multiprofessional conversation with the patient about symptoms, end-of-life decisions, network building and support for carers (SENS). The early palliative care intervention was performed within 16 weeks of the diagnosis of a tumour stage not amenable or responsive to curative treatment., Results: We included 58 participants with advanced cancer in our economic evaluation study. Median overall health care costs in the last month of life were 7892 Swiss Francs (CHF) (interquartile range: CHF 5637-13,489) in the intervention arm and CHF 8492 [CHF 5411-12,012] in the control arm. The average total intervention treatment cost CHF 380 per patient. Integrating an early palliative care intervention into usual oncology care showed no significant difference in health care utilisation or overall health care costs between intervention and control arms (p = 0.98)., Conclusion: Although early palliative care is often presented as a cost-reducing care service, we could not show a significant effect of the SENS intervention on health care utilisation and costs in the last month of life. However, it may be that the intervention was not intensive enough, the timeframe too short or the study population too small for measurable effects. Patients appreciated the intervention. Single-structured early palliative care interventions are easy to implement in clinical practice and present low treatment costs. Further research about the economic impact of early palliative care should focus on extracting large, detailed cost databases showing potential shifts in cost and cost-effectiveness., Clinical Trials: gov Identifier: NCT01983956.