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Background: The provision of high-quality palliative care in nursing homes (NHs) is a major challenge and places demands on the knowledge and skills of the staff. Aim: This study assesses the palliative care knowledge of staff in NHs in Europe. Design: Cross-sectional study using structured survey. Setting/participants: Nurses and care assistants working in 322 representative samples of NHs in Belgium, the Netherlands, England, Finland, Poland and Italy. Palliative care knowledge is measured with the Palliative Care Survey. Scores on the scales range between 0 and 1; higher scores indicate more knowledge. Results: A total of 3392 NH-staff were given a questionnaire, and 2275 responded (67%). Knowledge of basic palliative care issues ranged between 0.20 in Poland (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.19; 0.24) and 0.61 in Belgium (95% CI 0.59; 0.63), knowledge of physical aspects that can contribute to pain ranged between 0.81 in Poland (95% CI 0.79; 0.84) and 0.91 in the Netherlands (95% CI 0.89; 0.93), and knowledge of psychological reasons that can contribute to pain ranged between 0.56 in England (95% CI 0.50; 0.62) and 0.87 in Finland (95% CI 0.83; 0.90). Factors associated with knowledge were country, professional role and having undertaken formal training in palliative care. Conclusions: Knowledge of nurses and care assistants concerning basic palliative care issues appears to be suboptimal in all participating countries, although there is substantial heterogeneity. Education of nursing staff needs to be improved across, but each country may require its own strategy to address the unique and specific knowledge gaps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which evaluates the reliability and feasibility of a set of quality indicators (QIs) in palliative care settings and services across Europe. Among the methods used are descriptive statistics, chi-square analysis, and analysis of variance. It shows that the set of QIs seemed to measure four reliable domains including equipment and continuity of care, personnel training and appraisal, and availability of controlled drugs.

Background: Validated quality indicators can help health-care professionals to evaluate their medical practices in a comparativemanner to deliver optimal clinical care. No international set of quality indicators to measure the organizational aspects of palliativecare settings exists.Aim: To develop and validate a set of structure and process indicators for palliative care settings in Europe.Design: A two-round modified RAND Delphi process was conducted to rate clarity and usefulness of a previously developed set of110 quality indicators.Setting/participants: In total, 20 multi-professional palliative care teams of centers of excellence from seven European countries.Results: In total, 56 quality indicators were rated as useful. These valid quality indicators concerned the following domains: thedefinition of a palliative care service (2 quality indicators), accessibility to palliative care (16 quality indicators), specific infrastructureto deliver palliative care (8 quality indicators), symptom assessment tools (1 quality indicator), specific personnel in palliative careservices (9 quality indicators), documentation methodology of clinical data (14 quality indicators), evaluation of quality and safetyprocedures (1 quality indicator), reporting of clinical activities (1 quality indicator), and education in palliative care (4 quality indicator).Conclusion: The modified RAND Delphi process resulted in 56 international face-validated quality indicators to measure andcompare organizational aspects of palliative care. These quality indicators, aimed to assess and improve the organization of palliativecare, will be pilot tested in palliative care settings all over Europe and be used in the EU FP7 funded IMPACT project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]