Sage Palliative Medicine & Chronic Care

In this episode Dr James Downar (University of Toronto, Canada) presents a study which aimed to determine whether standardized patient simulation offers benefit over didactic sessions alone for improving skill and comfort discussing goals of care of first-year internal medicine residents. Full paper from: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0269216316652278

In this episode Professor Robin Cohen (Departments of Oncology and Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada) presents a study which aimed to revise the McGill Quality of Life Questionnaire (McGill Quality of Life Questionnaire–Revised) while maintaining or improving its psychometric properties and length, keeping it as close as possible to the McGill Quality of Life Questionnaire to enable reasonable comparison with existing McGill Quality of Life Questionnaire literature. A copy of the questionnaire can be requested by email (robin.cohen@mcgill.ca).  Full paper from: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0269216316659603

In this episode Simon Noah Etkind (King’s College London, Cicely Saunders Institute, Department of Palliative Care, Policy and Rehabilitation, London, UK) presents the results of a secondary thematic analysis of interviews study. The study aimed to understand patient experiences of uncertainty in advanced illness and subsequently develop a typology of patients’ responses. Full paper from: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0269216316647610

In this episode Dr Alastair Canaway (Warwick Clinical Trials Unit, Warwick Medical School, University of Warwick) presents the findings of  study which aimed to develop an outcome measure suitable for use in economic evaluation that captures the benefits of end-of-life care to those close to the dying. Full paper from: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0269216316650616

In this episode Yolanda Penders (End-of-Life Care Research Group, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and Ghent University, Brussels, Belgium) presents a study which aimed to investigate the self-reported out-of-pocket costs associated with healthcare in the last year of life of older adults in Europe. Full paper from:http://pmj.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/04/27/0269216316647206.abstract

In this episode  Camilla Zimmermann (University of Toronto) presents the findings of qualitative study which aimed to determine, from a participant perspective, the experience of receiving early palliative care and elements of that care. Full paper from: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0269216316649126

In this episode Professor Myra Bluebond-Langner (Louis Dundas Centre for Children’s Palliative Care) discusses the challenges faced by researchers aiming to recruit children and young people (CYP) with life-limiting conditions (LLCs) or life-threatening illnesses (LTIs) to research studies. For the full paper: http://pmj.sagepub.com/content/30/10/979

In this episode Dr Richard Harding (Kings College London) presents a study of drug-susceptible and drug-resistant tuberculosis. Specifically the study aimed to (1) identify most burdensome problems, (2) compare intensity of problems for drug-susceptible and drug-resistant tuberculosis and (3) identify predictors of problem identifiers. Full paper from: http://pmj.sagepub.com/content/30/9/862.long

Patient and caregiver perspectives on managing pain in advanced cancer In this episode Mary Godfrey (University of Leeds) discusses the knowledge gap in the literature between the conception of pain as complex, and the processes of how patients with cancer understand and experience pain. She outlines her qualitative longitudinal study, which involved face-to-face interviews and audio diaries with patients with advanced cancer and their carers. Her research provides insights of the experience of patients and their carers, and highlights the theoretical and practical gap in the current understanding of cancer pain. For the full paper:  http://pmj.sagepub.com/content/30/8/711.abstract