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Background: Needs assessment tools can facilitate healthcare professionals in timely recognition of palliative care needs. Despite the increased attention for implementation of such tools, most studies provide little or no attention to the context of implementation. The aim of this study was to explore factors that contribute positively and negatively to timely screening of palliative care needs in advanced chronic heart failure. Methods: Qualitative study using individual interviews and focus groups with healthcare professionals. The data were analysed using a deductive approach. The Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research was used to conceptualise the contextual factors. Results: Twenty nine healthcare professionals with different backgrounds and working in heart failure care in the Southern and Eastern parts of the Netherlands participated. Several factors were perceived to play a role, such as perception and knowledge about palliative care, awareness of palliative care needs in advanced chronic heart failure, perceived difficulty when and how to start palliative care, limited acceptance to treatment boundaries in cardiology, limited communication and collaboration between healthcare professionals, and need for education and increased attention for palliative care in advanced chronic heart failure guidelines. Conclusions: This study clarified critical factors targeting patients, healthcare professionals, organisations to implement a needs assessment tool for timely recognition of palliative care needs in the context of advanced chronic heart failure. A multifaceted implementation strategy is needed which has attention for education, patient empowerment, interdisciplinary collaboration, identification of local champions, chronic heart failure specific guidelines and culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Patients with incurable cancer face complex medical decisions. Their family caregivers play a prominent role in shared decision making processes, but we lack insights into their experiences. In this study, we explored how bereaved family caregivers experienced the shared decision making process. Methods: We performed a qualitative interview study with in-depth interviews analysed with inductive content analysis. We used a purposive sample of bereaved family caregivers (n = 16) of patients with cancer treated in a tertiary university hospital in the Netherlands. Results: Four themes were identified: 1. scenarios of decision making, 2. future death of the patient 3. factors influencing choices when making a treatment decision, and 4. preconditions for the decision making process. Most family caregivers deferred decisions to the patient or physician. Talking about the patient's future death was not preferred by all family caregivers. All family caregivers reported life prolongation as a significant motivator for treatment, while the quality of life was rarely mentioned. A respectful relationship, close involvement, and open communication with healthcare professionals in the palliative setting were valued by many interviewees. Family caregivers' experiences and needs seemed to be overlooked during medical encounters. Conclusions: Family caregivers of deceased patients with cancer mentioned life prolongation, and not quality of life, as the most important treatment aim. They highly valued interactions with the medical oncologist and being involved in the conversations. We advise medical oncologists to take more effort to involve the family caregiver, and more explicitly address quality of life in the consultations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Patients with incurable cancer face complex medical decisions. Their family caregivers play a prominent role in shared decision making processes, but we lack insights into their experiences. In this study, we explored how bereaved family caregivers experienced the shared decision making process. Methods: We performed a qualitative interview study with in-depth interviews analysed with inductive content analysis. We used a purposive sample of bereaved family caregivers (n = 16) of patients with cancer treated in a tertiary university hospital in the Netherlands. Results: Four themes were identified: 1. scenarios of decision making, 2. future death of the patient 3. factors influencing choices when making a treatment decision, and 4. preconditions for the decision making process. Most family caregivers deferred decisions to the patient or physician. Talking about the patient's future death was not preferred by all family caregivers. All family caregivers reported life prolongation as a significant motivator for treatment, while the quality of life was rarely mentioned. A respectful relationship, close involvement, and open communication with healthcare professionals in the palliative setting were valued by many interviewees. Family caregivers' experiences and needs seemed to be overlooked during medical encounters. Conclusions: Family caregivers of deceased patients with cancer mentioned life prolongation, and not quality of life, as the most important treatment aim. They highly valued interactions with the medical oncologist and being involved in the conversations. We advise medical oncologists to take more effort to involve the family caregiver, and more explicitly address quality of life in the consultations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Palliative care is mainly restricted to terminal care. General practitioners (GPs) are not trained to early identify palliative patients with cancer, COPD or heart failure. With the help of the RADboud indicators for PAlliative Care needs (RADPAC), we trained GPs to identify patients' needs and to make a proactive care plan. They were also able to join two role-plays where they discussed the patient's future, and consulted a palliative care consultant to fine-tune the care plan. We evaluated the programme with the GPs and consultants and noted its impact on their daily practice. Methods: Two years after they had participated in the programme, we held semi-structured interviews with the GPs and a focus group interview with the consultants and performed a thematic content analysis. Results: Six consultants and nine GPs participated in the programme. Most GPs and consultants mentioned positive changes in the thinking or acting of GPs regarding early palliative care. A number continued to use the tool to identify patients; most of the others noted they had internalised the indicators. Although half of them still considered discussing end-of-life aspects difficult, particularly in patients with organ failure, the others were more easily able to discuss the future with their palliative patients. Conclusion: Although most GPs and consultants were positive about the training programme and applying it in daily practice, we conclude that in future programmes, more attention needs to paid to timely identification of palliative patients with COPD or CHF and how to discuss the future with them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In the past decades, many new insights and best practices in palliative care, a relatively new field in health care, have been published. However, this knowledge is often not implemented. The aim of this study therefore was to identify strategies to implement improvement activities identified in a research project within daily palliative care practice. Methods: A nominal group technique was used with members of the IMPACT consortium, being international researchers and clinicians in cancer care, dementia care and palliative care. Participants identified and prioritized implementation strategies. Data was analyzed qualitatively using inductive coding. Results: Twenty international clinicians and researchers participated in one of two parallel nominal group sessions. The recommended strategies to implement results from a research project were grouped in five common themes: 1. Dissemination of results e.g. by publishing results tailored to relevant audiences, 2. Identification and dissemination of unique selling points, 3. education e.g. by developing e-learning tools and integrating scientific evidence into core curricula, 4. Stimulation of participation of stakeholders, and 5. consideration of consequences e.g. rewarding services for their implementation successes but not services that fail to implement quality improvement activities. Discussion: The added value of this nominal group study lies in the prioritisation by the experts of strategies to influence the implementation of quality improvement activities in palliative care. Efforts to ensure future use of scientific findings should be built into research projects in order to prevent waste of resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The aim of this study was to gain insight into the experience of time of terminal patients with cancer. Experience of time is relevant in palliative care in both policy and practice. On a policy level, the Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY), the most used outcome measure for cost-effectiveness analysis in healthcare, assumes time to be a linear and additive variable, which is one of the reasons that its applicability in palliative care is questioned. On a practice level, a better understanding of the experience of time of patients with limited time left, could help to recognize if and how these patients can have a more meaningful use of time. The main focus of this study was to discover whether time perception of these patients in their last months of life had changed as compared to earlier periods of time in their lives in good physical health. The pace of time and time dominance (comparison of past, present and future) were investigated. Methods: In several hospices and palliative care units in the Netherlands, twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted with terminal patients with cancer. Results: Time perception at the end of life had changed for most participants. They all lived on a day-to-day basis in the terminal phase, independent of their way of life in the healthy phase. Furthermore, the experienced duration of a day turned out to be very different between patients, but also between days, depending on daily activities. Besides, for most patients for whom the future was the dominant period of time in the healthy phase, the dominant period of time in the terminal phase had become the past. Conclusions: Time perception of terminal patients with cancer differed from the time perception in their relatively healthy phase of life. This suggests that the LY part of the QALY is not comparable for all phases of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]