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Humour interventions for patients in palliative care—a randomized controlled trial

PURPOSE: The effect of humour on end-of-life patients could be beneficial and is worth investigating. However, data on humour interventions for patients in palliative care are scarce. This study evaluated the effects of a humour intervention in a palliative care setting. METHODS: A two-step interven...

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Autores principales: Linge-Dahl, Lisa, Kreuz, Rainer, Stoffelen, Mieke, Heintz, Sonja, Ruch, Willibald, von Hirschhausen, Eckart, Radbruch, Lukas
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9925513/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36781553
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00520-023-07606-9
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author Linge-Dahl, Lisa
Kreuz, Rainer
Stoffelen, Mieke
Heintz, Sonja
Ruch, Willibald
von Hirschhausen, Eckart
Radbruch, Lukas
author_facet Linge-Dahl, Lisa
Kreuz, Rainer
Stoffelen, Mieke
Heintz, Sonja
Ruch, Willibald
von Hirschhausen, Eckart
Radbruch, Lukas
author_sort Linge-Dahl, Lisa
collection PubMed
description PURPOSE: The effect of humour on end-of-life patients could be beneficial and is worth investigating. However, data on humour interventions for patients in palliative care are scarce. This study evaluated the effects of a humour intervention in a palliative care setting. METHODS: A two-step intervention was developed based on the humour habits programme by McGhee. Patients were assisted to remember funny episodes from their past and recognize humorous aspects of the present and encouraged to produce humour. The intervention and control group completed questionnaires on life satisfaction, cheerfulness, symptom burden, and perceived stress and if possible gave saliva samples to investigate oxytocin levels. The study was a randomized controlled monocentre study on patients treated in a palliative care ward. Participants had to be conscious and alert enough to complete data collection. Overall, 55 patients were included and randomized to the intervention or control group. RESULTS: Parameters in the control group did not change significantly. In the intervention group, seriousness, bad mood, and stress were reduced. Cheerfulness increased significantly after the intervention. However, the methodologically complex intervention setting was too exhausting for the majority of patients. CONCLUSION: Patients who were able to participate benefited from the effects of the intervention on multiple levels. For future research simple interventions, biomarkers for well-being and assessments by staff or proxies are needed to include patients with reduced cognitive and physical performance status at the end of their lives. TRIAL REGISTRATION: DRKS00028978 German Registry of Clinical Studies. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00520-023-07606-9.
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spelling pubmed-99255132023-02-15 Humour interventions for patients in palliative care—a randomized controlled trial Linge-Dahl, Lisa Kreuz, Rainer Stoffelen, Mieke Heintz, Sonja Ruch, Willibald von Hirschhausen, Eckart Radbruch, Lukas Support Care Cancer Research PURPOSE: The effect of humour on end-of-life patients could be beneficial and is worth investigating. However, data on humour interventions for patients in palliative care are scarce. This study evaluated the effects of a humour intervention in a palliative care setting. METHODS: A two-step intervention was developed based on the humour habits programme by McGhee. Patients were assisted to remember funny episodes from their past and recognize humorous aspects of the present and encouraged to produce humour. The intervention and control group completed questionnaires on life satisfaction, cheerfulness, symptom burden, and perceived stress and if possible gave saliva samples to investigate oxytocin levels. The study was a randomized controlled monocentre study on patients treated in a palliative care ward. Participants had to be conscious and alert enough to complete data collection. Overall, 55 patients were included and randomized to the intervention or control group. RESULTS: Parameters in the control group did not change significantly. In the intervention group, seriousness, bad mood, and stress were reduced. Cheerfulness increased significantly after the intervention. However, the methodologically complex intervention setting was too exhausting for the majority of patients. CONCLUSION: Patients who were able to participate benefited from the effects of the intervention on multiple levels. For future research simple interventions, biomarkers for well-being and assessments by staff or proxies are needed to include patients with reduced cognitive and physical performance status at the end of their lives. TRIAL REGISTRATION: DRKS00028978 German Registry of Clinical Studies. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00520-023-07606-9. Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2023-02-13 2023 /pmc/articles/PMC9925513/ /pubmed/36781553 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00520-023-07606-9 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Research
Linge-Dahl, Lisa
Kreuz, Rainer
Stoffelen, Mieke
Heintz, Sonja
Ruch, Willibald
von Hirschhausen, Eckart
Radbruch, Lukas
Humour interventions for patients in palliative care—a randomized controlled trial
title Humour interventions for patients in palliative care—a randomized controlled trial
title_full Humour interventions for patients in palliative care—a randomized controlled trial
title_fullStr Humour interventions for patients in palliative care—a randomized controlled trial
title_full_unstemmed Humour interventions for patients in palliative care—a randomized controlled trial
title_short Humour interventions for patients in palliative care—a randomized controlled trial
title_sort humour interventions for patients in palliative care—a randomized controlled trial
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9925513/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36781553
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00520-023-07606-9
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