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Health care professionals’ experience, understanding and perception of need of advanced cancer patients with cachexia and their families: The benefits of a dedicated clinic
BACKGROUND: Cachexia is defined as the on-going loss of skeletal muscle mass that cannot be fully reversed by conventional nutritional support. It is found in up to 80% of patients with advanced cancer and has profound psycho-social consequences for patients and their families. Previous studies demo...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2016
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5203721/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28038676 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12904-016-0171-y |
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author | Scott, David Reid, Joanne Hudson, Peter Martin, Peter Porter, Sam |
author_facet | Scott, David Reid, Joanne Hudson, Peter Martin, Peter Porter, Sam |
author_sort | Scott, David |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Cachexia is defined as the on-going loss of skeletal muscle mass that cannot be fully reversed by conventional nutritional support. It is found in up to 80% of patients with advanced cancer and has profound psycho-social consequences for patients and their families. Previous studies demonstrate that many healthcare professionals receive little formal education in cachexia management leading them to feel that they have limited understanding of the syndrome and cannot intervene effectively. This study aims to examine the value of a dedicated cachexia clinic and its influence on staff understanding and practice. METHODS: An exploratory qualitative study was conducted. The study employed semi-structured interviews with a range of healthcare professionals responsible for designing and delivering cancer care in a large teaching hospital in Australia. This hospital had a dedicated cachexia clinic. RESULTS: In-depth interviews were conducted with 8 healthcare professionals and senior managers. Four themes were identified: formal and informal education; knowledge and understanding; truth telling in cachexia and palliative care; and, a multi-disciplinary approach. Findings show that improved knowledge and understanding across a staff body can lead to enhanced staff confidence and a willingness to address cancer cachexia and its consequences with patients and their families. CONCLUSION: Comparisons with similar previous research demonstrate the advantages of providing a structure for staff to gain knowledge about cachexia and how this can contribute to feelings of improved understanding and confidence necessary to respond to the challenge of cachexia. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12904-016-0171-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5203721 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2016 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-52037212017-01-03 Health care professionals’ experience, understanding and perception of need of advanced cancer patients with cachexia and their families: The benefits of a dedicated clinic Scott, David Reid, Joanne Hudson, Peter Martin, Peter Porter, Sam BMC Palliat Care Research Article BACKGROUND: Cachexia is defined as the on-going loss of skeletal muscle mass that cannot be fully reversed by conventional nutritional support. It is found in up to 80% of patients with advanced cancer and has profound psycho-social consequences for patients and their families. Previous studies demonstrate that many healthcare professionals receive little formal education in cachexia management leading them to feel that they have limited understanding of the syndrome and cannot intervene effectively. This study aims to examine the value of a dedicated cachexia clinic and its influence on staff understanding and practice. METHODS: An exploratory qualitative study was conducted. The study employed semi-structured interviews with a range of healthcare professionals responsible for designing and delivering cancer care in a large teaching hospital in Australia. This hospital had a dedicated cachexia clinic. RESULTS: In-depth interviews were conducted with 8 healthcare professionals and senior managers. Four themes were identified: formal and informal education; knowledge and understanding; truth telling in cachexia and palliative care; and, a multi-disciplinary approach. Findings show that improved knowledge and understanding across a staff body can lead to enhanced staff confidence and a willingness to address cancer cachexia and its consequences with patients and their families. CONCLUSION: Comparisons with similar previous research demonstrate the advantages of providing a structure for staff to gain knowledge about cachexia and how this can contribute to feelings of improved understanding and confidence necessary to respond to the challenge of cachexia. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12904-016-0171-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2016-12-30 /pmc/articles/PMC5203721/ /pubmed/28038676 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12904-016-0171-y Text en © The Author(s). 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 Scott, David Reid, Joanne Hudson, Peter Martin, Peter Porter, Sam Health care professionals’ experience, understanding and perception of need of advanced cancer patients with cachexia and their families: The benefits of a dedicated clinic |
title | Health care professionals’ experience, understanding and perception of need of advanced cancer patients with cachexia and their families: The benefits of a dedicated clinic |
title_full | Health care professionals’ experience, understanding and perception of need of advanced cancer patients with cachexia and their families: The benefits of a dedicated clinic |
title_fullStr | Health care professionals’ experience, understanding and perception of need of advanced cancer patients with cachexia and their families: The benefits of a dedicated clinic |
title_full_unstemmed | Health care professionals’ experience, understanding and perception of need of advanced cancer patients with cachexia and their families: The benefits of a dedicated clinic |
title_short | Health care professionals’ experience, understanding and perception of need of advanced cancer patients with cachexia and their families: The benefits of a dedicated clinic |
title_sort | health care professionals’ experience, understanding and perception of need of advanced cancer patients with cachexia and their families: the benefits of a dedicated clinic |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5203721/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28038676 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12904-016-0171-y |
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