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      Effects of a transitional palliative care model on patients with end-stage heart failure: a randomised controlled trial

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          Abstract

          Objective

          To examine the effects of home-based transitional palliative care for patients with end-stage heart failure (ESHF) after hospital discharge.

          Methods

          This was a randomised controlled trial conducted in three hospitals in Hong Kong. The recruited subjects were patients with ESHF who had been discharged home from hospitals and referred for palliative service, and who met the specified inclusion criteria. The interventions consisted of weekly home visits/telephone calls in the first 4 weeks then monthly follow-up, provided by a nurse case manager supported by a multidisciplinary team. The primary outcome measures were any readmission and count of readmissions within 4 and 12 weeks after index discharge, compared using χ 2 tests and Poisson regression, respectively. Secondarily, change in symptoms over time between control and intervention groups were evaluated using generalised estimating equation analyses of data collected using the Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale (ESAS).

          Results

          The intervention group (n=43) had a significantly lower readmission rate than the control group (n=41) at 12 weeks (intervention 33.6% vs control 61.0% χ 2=6.8, p=0.009). The mean number (SE) of readmissions for the intervention and control groups was, respectively, 0.42 (0.10) and 1.10 (0.16) and the difference was significant (p=0.001). The relative risk (CI) for 12-week readmissions for the intervention group was 0.55 (0.35 to 0.88). There was no significant difference in readmissions between groups at 4 weeks. However, when compared with the control group, the intervention group experienced significantly higher clinical improvement in depression (45.9% vs 16.1%, p<0.05), dyspnoea (62.2% vs 29.0%, p<0.05) and total ESAS score (73.0% vs 41.4%, p<0.05) at 4 weeks. There were significant differences between groups in changes over time in quality of life (QOL) measured by McGill QOL (p<0.05) and chronic HF (p<0.01) questionnaires.

          Conclusions

          This study provides evidence of the effectiveness of a postdischarge transitional care palliative programme in reducing readmissions and improving symptom control among patients with ESHF.

          Trial registration number

          HKCTR-1562; Results.

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          Most cited references25

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          Palliative care in heart failure: a position statement from the palliative care workshop of the Heart Failure Association of the European Society of Cardiology.

          Heart failure is a serious condition and equivalent to malignant disease in terms of symptom burden and mortality. At this moment only a comparatively small number of heart failure patients receive specialist palliative care. Heart failure patients may have generic palliative care needs, such as refractory multifaceted symptoms, communication and decision making issues and the requirement for family support. The Advanced Heart Failure Study Group of the Heart Failure Association of the European Society of Cardiology organized a workshop to address the issue of palliative care in heart failure to increase awareness of the need for palliative care. Additional objectives included improving the accessibility and quality of palliative care for heart failure patients and promoting the development of heart failure-orientated palliative care services across Europe. This document represents a synthesis of the presentations and discussion during the workshop and describes recommendations in the area of delivery of quality care to patients and families, education, treatment coordination, research and policy.
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            Evidence for improving palliative care at the end of life: a systematic review.

            Many persons and their families are burdened by serious chronic illness in late life. How to best support quality of life is an important consideration for care. To assess evidence about interventions to improve palliative and end-of-life care. English-language citations (January 1990 to November 2005) from MEDLINE, the Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects, the National Consensus Project for Quality Palliative Care bibliography, and November 2005 to January 2007 updates from expert reviews and literature surveillance. Systematic reviews that addressed "end of life," including terminal illness (for example, advanced cancer) and chronic, eventually fatal illness with ambiguous prognosis (for example, advanced dementia), and intervention studies (randomized and nonrandomized designs) that addressed pain, dyspnea, depression, advance care planning, continuity, and caregiving. Single reviewers screened 24,423 titles to find 6381 relevant abstracts and reviewed 1274 articles in detail to identify 33 high-quality systematic reviews and 89 relevant intervention studies. They synthesized the evidence by using the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) classification. Strong evidence supports treating cancer pain with opioids, nonsteroidals, radionuclides, and radiotherapy; dyspnea from chronic lung disease with short-term opioids; and cancer-associated depression with psychotherapy, tricyclics, and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Strong evidence supports multi component interventions to improve continuity in heart failure. Moderate evidence supports advance care planning led by skilled facilitators who engage key decision makers and interventions to alleviate caregiver burden. Weak evidence addresses cancer-related dyspnea management, and no evidence addresses noncancer pain, symptomatic dyspnea management in advanced heart failure, or short-acting antidepressants in terminal illness. No direct evidence addresses improving continuity for patients with dementia. Evidence was weak for improving caregiver burdens in cancer and was absent for heart failure. Variable literature indexing for advanced chronic illness and end of life limited the comprehensiveness of searches, and heterogeneity was too great to do meta-analysis. Strong to moderate evidence supports interventions to improve important aspects of end-of-life care. Future research should quantify these effects and address the generalizability of insights across the conditions and settings of the last part of life. Many critical issues lack high-quality evidence.
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              The experience of living with chronic heart failure: a narrative review of qualitative studies

              Background Chronic heart failure (CHF) is the leading cause of all hospitalisations and readmissions in older people, accounting for a large proportion of developed countries' national health care expenditure. CHF can severely affect people's quality of life by reducing their independence and ability to undertake certain activities of daily living, as well as affecting their psychosocial and economic capacity. This paper reports the findings of a systematic narrative review of qualitative studies concerning people's experience of living with CHF, aiming to develop a wide-ranging understanding of what is known about the patient experience. Methods We searched eight relevant electronic databases using the terms based on the diagnosis of 'chronic heart failure', 'heart failure' and 'congestive heart failure' and qualitative methods, with restrictions to the years 1990-May 2008. We also used snowballing, hand searching and the expert knowledge of the research team to ensure all relevant papers were included in the review. Of 65 papers collected less than half (n = 30) were found relevant for this review. These papers were subsequently summarised and entered into QSR NVivo7 for data management and analysis. Results The review has identified the most prominent impacts of CHF on a person's everyday life including social isolation, living in fear and losing a sense of control. It has also identified common strategies through which patients with CHF manage their illness such as sharing experiences and burdens with others and being flexible to changing circumstances. Finally, there are multiple factors that commonly impact on patients' self care and self-management in the disease trajectory including knowledge, understanding and health service encounters. These health service encounters encompass access, continuity and quality of care, co-morbid conditions, and personal relationships. Conclusions The core and sub-concepts identified within this study provide health professionals, service providers, policy makers and educators with broad insights into common elements of people's experiences of CHF and potential options for improving their health and wellbeing. Future studies should focus on building a comprehensive picture of CHF through examination of differences between genders, and differences within age groups, socioeconomic groups and cultural groups.
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                Author and article information

                Journal
                Heart
                Heart
                heartjnl
                heart
                Heart
                BMJ Publishing Group (BMA House, Tavistock Square, London, WC1H 9JR )
                1355-6037
                1468-201X
                15 July 2016
                11 March 2016
                : 102
                : 14
                : 1100-1108
                Affiliations
                [1 ]School of Nursing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University , Hong Kong, China
                [2 ]Department of Medicine and Geriatrics, United Christian Hospital , Hong Kong, China
                [3 ]Department of Medicine, Haven of Hope Hospital , Hong Kong, China
                [4 ]Palliative Medical Unit, Grantham Hospital , Hong Kong, China
                Author notes
                [Correspondence to ] Professor Frances Kam Yuet Wong, School of Nursing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China; frances.wong@ 123456polyu.edu.hk
                Author information
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5729-6450
                Article
                heartjnl-2015-308638
                10.1136/heartjnl-2015-308638
                4941184
                26969631
                a3306c0b-b20c-40b8-963a-01e21f8c9d76
                Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/

                This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

                History
                : 2 September 2015
                : 10 February 2016
                : 18 February 2016
                Categories
                1506
                Heart Failure and Cardiomyopathies
                Original article
                Custom metadata
                unlocked

                Cardiovascular Medicine
                Cardiovascular Medicine

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