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The views and opinions expressed in our blog series are those of the authors and are not necessarily supported by CareSearch, Flinders University and/or the Australian Government Department of Health.
Some patients do not receive adequate pain and symptom relief at the end of life, causing distress to patients, families and healthcare professionals. It is unclear whether undertreatment of symptoms occurs, in part, because of nurses' concerns about legal and/or disciplinary repercussions if the patient dies after medication is administered. Dr Katrin Gerber, Professor Lindy Willmott, Professor Ben White, and Distinguished Professor Patsy Yates from Queensland University of Technology discuss the findings from their research and interviews with nurses from different clinical backgrounds and settings about their concerns when providing pain and symptom relief to patients near the end of life.
palliAGED provides palliative care practice and evidence guidance for our aged care workforce. Susan Gravier and Robyn Dutschke, Research Associates from CareSearch and palliAGED, discuss the importance of psychosocial care in providing quality palliative care and how the new palliAGED pages on the topic were developed.
The last five years has seen major change in aged care policy directions and regulation. In this blog, CareSearch and palliAGED Director Professor Jennifer Tieman discusses the importance of reviewing and consolidating aged care resources to ensure currency, relevance, and ease of access, and how palliAGED responds to the varied and changing contexts in which care is provided.
Informing people with vastly different backgrounds, literacy levels and capacity, as well as roles is a challenge. This is why in the 2017-2020 project period, CareSearch and palliAGED began the Engagement Project working with specific groups (allied health, aged care and patients, carers, and families) to learn more about how they find and use health care information and what information about end of life and palliative care they need. Dr Katrina Erny-Albrecht, Senior Research Fellow for CareSearch discusses some key findings from the project and the central importance of context.
There have been many changes around how to care for others since the outbreak of COVID-19. These changes can compromise the wellbeing of people who receive and deliver palliative care. Hence it has never been more important to undertake research into understanding what is quality – and brilliant - palliative care. Dr Aileen Collier, Associate Professor Ann Dadich, Ms Catherine Jeffs and Professor Gregory Crawford discuss the findings of their research into enabling and sustaining brilliant palliative care.