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Written survey on recently deceased patients in germany and switzerland: how do general practitioners see their role?

BACKGROUND: General practitioners (GPs) play an important role in end-of-life care due to their proximity to the patient’s dwelling-place and their contact to relatives and other care providers. METHODS: In order to get a better understanding of the role which the GP sees him- or herself as playing...

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Autores principales: Schnakenberg, Rieke, Goeldlin, Adrian, Boehm-Stiel, Christina, Bleckwenn, Markus, Weckbecker, Klaus, Radbruch, Lukas
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4719660/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26787308
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-016-1257-1
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author Schnakenberg, Rieke
Goeldlin, Adrian
Boehm-Stiel, Christina
Bleckwenn, Markus
Weckbecker, Klaus
Radbruch, Lukas
author_facet Schnakenberg, Rieke
Goeldlin, Adrian
Boehm-Stiel, Christina
Bleckwenn, Markus
Weckbecker, Klaus
Radbruch, Lukas
author_sort Schnakenberg, Rieke
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: General practitioners (GPs) play an important role in end-of-life care due to their proximity to the patient’s dwelling-place and their contact to relatives and other care providers. METHODS: In order to get a better understanding of the role which the GP sees him- or herself as playing in end-of-life care and which care their dying patients get, we conducted this written survey. It asked questions about the most recently deceased patient of each physician. The questionnaire was sent to 1,201 GPs in southern North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany) and the Canton of Bern (Switzerland). RESULTS: Response rate was 27.5 % (n = 330). The average age of responding physicians was 54.5 years (range: 34–76; standard derivation: 7.4), 68 % of them were male and 45 % worked alone in their practice. Primary outcome measures of this observational study are the characteristics of recently deceased patients as well as their care and the involvement of other professional caregivers. Almost half of the most recently deceased patients had cancer. Only 3 to 16 % of all deceased suffered from severe levels of pain, nausea, dyspnea or emesis. More than 80 % of the doctors considered themselves to be an indispensable part of their patient’s end-of-life care. Almost 90 % of the doctors were in contact with the patient’s family and 50 % with the responsible nursing service. The majority of the GPs had taken over the coordination of care and cooperation with other attending physicians. CONCLUSION: The study confirms the relevance of caring for dying patients in GPs work and provides an important insight into their perception of their own role.
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spelling pubmed-47196602016-01-21 Written survey on recently deceased patients in germany and switzerland: how do general practitioners see their role? Schnakenberg, Rieke Goeldlin, Adrian Boehm-Stiel, Christina Bleckwenn, Markus Weckbecker, Klaus Radbruch, Lukas BMC Health Serv Res Research Article BACKGROUND: General practitioners (GPs) play an important role in end-of-life care due to their proximity to the patient’s dwelling-place and their contact to relatives and other care providers. METHODS: In order to get a better understanding of the role which the GP sees him- or herself as playing in end-of-life care and which care their dying patients get, we conducted this written survey. It asked questions about the most recently deceased patient of each physician. The questionnaire was sent to 1,201 GPs in southern North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany) and the Canton of Bern (Switzerland). RESULTS: Response rate was 27.5 % (n = 330). The average age of responding physicians was 54.5 years (range: 34–76; standard derivation: 7.4), 68 % of them were male and 45 % worked alone in their practice. Primary outcome measures of this observational study are the characteristics of recently deceased patients as well as their care and the involvement of other professional caregivers. Almost half of the most recently deceased patients had cancer. Only 3 to 16 % of all deceased suffered from severe levels of pain, nausea, dyspnea or emesis. More than 80 % of the doctors considered themselves to be an indispensable part of their patient’s end-of-life care. Almost 90 % of the doctors were in contact with the patient’s family and 50 % with the responsible nursing service. The majority of the GPs had taken over the coordination of care and cooperation with other attending physicians. CONCLUSION: The study confirms the relevance of caring for dying patients in GPs work and provides an important insight into their perception of their own role. BioMed Central 2016-01-20 /pmc/articles/PMC4719660/ /pubmed/26787308 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-016-1257-1 Text en © Schnakenberg et al. 2016 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Schnakenberg, Rieke
Goeldlin, Adrian
Boehm-Stiel, Christina
Bleckwenn, Markus
Weckbecker, Klaus
Radbruch, Lukas
Written survey on recently deceased patients in germany and switzerland: how do general practitioners see their role?
title Written survey on recently deceased patients in germany and switzerland: how do general practitioners see their role?
title_full Written survey on recently deceased patients in germany and switzerland: how do general practitioners see their role?
title_fullStr Written survey on recently deceased patients in germany and switzerland: how do general practitioners see their role?
title_full_unstemmed Written survey on recently deceased patients in germany and switzerland: how do general practitioners see their role?
title_short Written survey on recently deceased patients in germany and switzerland: how do general practitioners see their role?
title_sort written survey on recently deceased patients in germany and switzerland: how do general practitioners see their role?
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4719660/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26787308
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-016-1257-1
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