Patient Goals (patient + goal)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Effect of a Disease-Specific Planning Intervention on Surrogate Understanding of Patient Goals for Future Medical Treatment

JOURNAL OF AMERICAN GERIATRICS SOCIETY, Issue 7 2010
Karin T. Kirchhoff PhD
OBJECTIVES: To determine whether a disease-specific planning process can improve surrogate understanding of goals of patients with life-limiting illnesses for future medical treatments. DESIGN: A multisite randomized controlled trial conducted between January 1, 2004 and July 31, 2007. SETTING: Six outpatient clinics of large community or university health systems in three Wisconsin cities. PARTICIPANTS: Competent, English-speaking adults aged 18 and older with chronic congestive heart failure or chronic renal disease and their surrogate decision-makers. INTERVENTION: Trained health professionals conducted a structured, patient-centered interview intended to promote informed decision-making and to result in the completion of a document clarifying the goals of the patient with regard to four disease-specific health outcome situations and the degree of decision-making latitude granted to the surrogate. MEASUREMENTS: Surrogate understanding of patient goals for care with regard to four expected, disease-specific outcomes situations and of the degree of surrogate latitude in decision-making. RESULTS: Three hundred thirteen patient,surrogate pairs completed the study. As measured according to kappa scores and in all four situations and in the degree of latitude, intervention group surrogates demonstrated a significantly higher degree of understanding of patient goals than control group surrogates. Intervention group kappa scores ranged from 0.61 to 0.78, whereas control group kappa scores ranged from 0.07 to 0.28. CONCLUSION: Surrogates in the intervention group had a significantly better understanding of patient goals and preferences than surrogates in the control group. This finding is the first step toward ensuring that patient goals for care are known and honored. [source]


The use of conversational analysis: nurse,patient interaction in communication disability after stroke

JOURNAL OF ADVANCED NURSING, Issue 3 2009
Clare Gordon
Abstract Title., The use of conversational analysis: nurse,patient interaction in communication disability after stroke. Aim., This paper is a report of a study to explore how nursing staff and patients with aphasia or dysarthria communicate with each other in natural interactions on a specialist stroke ward. Background., Nursing staff often talk with patients in a functional manner, using minimal social or affective communication. Little nursing research has been carried out with patients who have communication difficulties. Conversational analysis, used in other healthcare settings, is a way to explore these interactions in depth in order to gain further understanding of the communication process. Method., An observational study was carried out in 2005 and the data were 35·5 hours of videotape recording and field notes with 14 nursing staff and five patients with aphasia or dysarthria. The recordings were analysed using conversation analysis. Findings., Nursing staff controlled the conversations by controlling the topic and flow of conversations, creating asymmetry in all interactions. Patients had very little input because of taking short turns and responding to closed questions. These behaviours are related to the institutional context in which they occur. Conclusion., In rehabilitation, the focus for interaction may be thought to be patient goals, worries or plans for the future, but in this study nursing staff controlled the conversations around nursing tasks. This may be because they do not have the confidence to hold conversations with people with communication problems. Nursing staff need to receive training to reinforce communication rehabilitation programmes and to engage more fully with patients in their care, but also that a wider institutional culture of partnership is developed on stroke wards. [source]


Effect of a Disease-Specific Planning Intervention on Surrogate Understanding of Patient Goals for Future Medical Treatment

JOURNAL OF AMERICAN GERIATRICS SOCIETY, Issue 7 2010
Karin T. Kirchhoff PhD
OBJECTIVES: To determine whether a disease-specific planning process can improve surrogate understanding of goals of patients with life-limiting illnesses for future medical treatments. DESIGN: A multisite randomized controlled trial conducted between January 1, 2004 and July 31, 2007. SETTING: Six outpatient clinics of large community or university health systems in three Wisconsin cities. PARTICIPANTS: Competent, English-speaking adults aged 18 and older with chronic congestive heart failure or chronic renal disease and their surrogate decision-makers. INTERVENTION: Trained health professionals conducted a structured, patient-centered interview intended to promote informed decision-making and to result in the completion of a document clarifying the goals of the patient with regard to four disease-specific health outcome situations and the degree of decision-making latitude granted to the surrogate. MEASUREMENTS: Surrogate understanding of patient goals for care with regard to four expected, disease-specific outcomes situations and of the degree of surrogate latitude in decision-making. RESULTS: Three hundred thirteen patient,surrogate pairs completed the study. As measured according to kappa scores and in all four situations and in the degree of latitude, intervention group surrogates demonstrated a significantly higher degree of understanding of patient goals than control group surrogates. Intervention group kappa scores ranged from 0.61 to 0.78, whereas control group kappa scores ranged from 0.07 to 0.28. CONCLUSION: Surrogates in the intervention group had a significantly better understanding of patient goals and preferences than surrogates in the control group. This finding is the first step toward ensuring that patient goals for care are known and honored. [source]


Geriatric Oncology and Primary Care: Promoting Partnerships in Practice and Research

JOURNAL OF AMERICAN GERIATRICS SOCIETY, Issue 2009
Julia Hannum Rose PhD
This supplement is a compilation of original work that was presented at an interdisciplinary conference on "Geriatric Oncology and Primary Care: Promoting Partnerships in Practice and Research" held in Cleveland, Ohio, April 3 to 4, 2008. An audience of 77 clinicians and researchers attended this conference, primarily coming from Ohio and adjacent states. Articles are organized around a conceptual framework to consider primary and shared care roles of primary care physicians (PCPs) and oncologists in the care of older patients with cancer and their families. Articles in Section One focus on evidence-based clinical practice and recommendations. Section Two includes articles on original psychosocial and health services research that inform this topic. Papers in this conference were developed in recognition of the greater prevalence and growing incidence of cancer in older adults; the unique geriatric expertise and practice considerations essential to the prevention and control of cancer in older adults; the important and effective roles that PCPs may play in such care; and the need to develop shared care models that foster collaboration between PCPs and oncologists, from cancer prevention through long-term survivorship and end-of-life care of older adults. Models of shared care between oncologists and PCPs should be tested and compared for optimal care of older patients with cancer and their families. Potential implications of ideally shared care include more-informed patient-centered decision-making, better adherence to treatment, improved match between older patient goals and treatments, and thus better outcomes. [source]


Integrating evidence into clinical practice: an alternative to evidence-based approaches

JOURNAL OF EVALUATION IN CLINICAL PRACTICE, Issue 3 2006
Mark R. Tonelli MD MA
Abstract Evidence-based medicine (EBM) has thus far failed to adequately account for the appropriate incorporation of other potential warrants for medical decision making into clinical practice. In particular, EBM has struggled with the value and integration of other kinds of medical knowledge, such as those derived from clinical experience or based on pathophysiologic rationale. The general priority given to empirical evidence derived from clinical research in all EBM approaches is not epistemically tenable. A casuistic alternative to EBM approaches recognizes that five distinct topics, 1) empirical evidence, 2) experiential evidence, 3) pathophysiologic rationale, 4) patient goals and values, and 5) system features are potentially relevant to any clinical decision. No single topic has a general priority over any other and the relative importance of a topic will depend upon the circumstances of the particular case. The skilled clinician must weigh these potentially conflicting evidentiary and non-evidentiary warrants for action, employing both practical and theoretical reasoning, in order to arrive at the best choice for an individual patient. [source]


Multimodal Analgesia for Chronic Pain: Rationale and Future Directions

PAIN MEDICINE, Issue S2 2009
Charles E. Argoff MD
ABSTRACT Chronic pain is a multifaceted disease requiring multimodal treatment. Clinicians routinely employ various combinations of pharmacologic, interventional, cognitive,behavioral, rehabilitative, and other nonmedical therapies despite the paucity of robust evidence in support of such an approach. Therapies are selected consistent with the biopsychosocial model of chronic pain, reflecting the subjective nature of the pain complaint, and the myriad stressors that shape it. Elucidating mechanisms that govern normal sensation in the periphery has provided insights into the biochemical, molecular, and neuroanatomic correlates of chronic pain, an understanding of which is leading increasingly to mechanism-specific multidrug therapies. Peripheral and central neuroplastic reorganization underlying the disease of chronic pain is influenced by patient-specific emotions, cognition, and memories, further impairing function and idiosyncratically defining the illness of chronic pain. Clinical perceptions of these and related subjective elements associated with the suffering of chronic pain drive psychosocial treatments, including, among other options, relaxation therapies, coping skills development, and cognitive,behavioral therapy. Treatment selection is thus guided by comprehensive assessment of the phenomenology and inferred pathophysiology of the pain syndrome; patient goals, preferences, and expectations; behavioral, cognitive, and physical function; and level of risk. Experiential, practice-based evidence may be necessary for improving patient care, but it is insufficient; certainly, well-designed studies are needed to support therapeutic decision making. This review will discuss the biochemical basis of pain, factors that govern its severity and chronicity, and foundational elements for current and emerging multimodal treatment strategies. [source]


Positive life goals and plans in parasuicide

CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHOTHERAPY (AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THEORY & PRACTICE), Issue 2 2004
Paula J. Vincent
Parasuicidal individuals lack positive expectations about the future. This study set out to examine two aspects of positive future thinking,the ability to think of goals and the presence of cognitions related to achieving those goals, including plans, perceived control and perceived likelihood. Individuals who had recently engaged in an episode of parasuicide (N = 24) were compared with matched, hospital controls (N = 24) on a range of measures to assess number and type of goals, ability to think of plans to achieve goals, sense of control over goal outcomes, and perceived likelihood of achieving goals, as well as self-report measures of hope, hopelessness, depression and anxiety. The two groups did not differ in the number of goals they could identify, especially after controlling for unemployment. The groups did differ in the quality of goals with the parasuicide patients' goals being less specific and more self-focused in important goals, though these effects were confounded by group differences in employment status. Compared to controls, and after controlling for employment, parasuicide patients gave less specific plans, could think of more obstacles to achieving their goals and gave lower ratings of control and likelihood of achieving their goals. Parasuicide patients appear able to think of positive life goals but have clear problems in being able to think of how to achieve those goals.,Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]