Welcome to the November 2016 edition of @CARESEARCH. This month's edition includes:
FROM THE WEBSITE
Page Updates
World Hospice Day
World Hospice and Palliative Care Day is a unified day of action to celebrate and support hospice and palliative care around the world. The theme for this year’s event is ‘Living and dying in pain - it doesn’t have to happen’. To support this theme, CareSearch created a poster resource (337kb pdf) outlining evidence for practice around pain. It highlights a range of resources around pain management and education particularly how you can improve the care of people with cancer by using the Australian Clinical Pathway as developed by Cancer Council Australia and highlights the importance of keeping up to date with systematic reviews, evidence updates and pre-written literature searches on pain management.
National Carers Week
Ara Creswell, the CEO of Carers Australia, wrote in a blog for Carers Week 2016 a national week 'gives all Australians the opportunity to show their support for Australia’s 2.8 million unpaid carers!' Unpaid carers make a tremendous contribution to the nation but they also make a difference to an individual. This year to co-incide with National Carers Week, CareSearch released an infographic to help carers finding trustworthy health information online (569kb pdf). 86% of all households in Australia have access to the internet so being able to navigate the sites and resources held on the web is an important skill.
A set of blogs published on palliative perspectives highlighted different aspects of caring including a carer’s blog on caring for her dying mother and a reminder that carers continue to care for those they love even after they have entered residential aged care.
CareSearch Publication
Access to reliable current information about the costs of palliative care is crucial to provide evidence to underpin service provision, to assist in clinical and policy decision making and to inform ongoing research. CareSearch developed a suite of costs of care searching resources last year. A research letter, Finding evidence about the costs of palliative care: CareSearch’s suite of search tools. has been published in Palliative Medicine and is available now in the Online First section.
Newsletters
CareSearch Refresh
CareSearch has been a source of palliative care evidence, information and resources to health professionals and patients and families for over eight years. In that time, we have increased the amount of content held on CareSearch and there have been many changes in the way that people engage with online resources. We are now in the era of smart phones and social media. So, in the coming months we will be making some changes to the CareSearch website. This will make it easier for you to find information and to use the website on different devices.
We’re working hard to make sure your access to the site is not affected while we make these changes. But if you find a problem email us at caresearch@flinders.edu.au.
New blogs on Palliative Perspectives
The following blogs were published during October 2016
Please feel free to share these blogs with your colleagues and friends on Twitter, LinkedIn, via email, or wherever you spend time online.
Conference Activities
CareSearch has been involved in a number of conferences including Palliative Care NSW in Broken Hill, SARRAH and the Palliative Care Research Colloquium. We look forward to including presentations from the conferences where possible in the CareSearch Grey Literature. You can check out our presentations on the CareSearch Conference Presentations page.
CareSearch Review Collection
Twenty reviews were added to the CareSearch Review Collection in October. They included:
- Singer AE, Goebel JR, Kim YS, Dy SM, Ahluwalia SC, Clifford M, et al. Populations and interventions for palliative and end-of-life care: A systematic review. J Palliat Med. 2016. Sep;19(9):995-1008. Epub 2016 Aug 17.
This review explored the relative effectiveness of palliative care interventions and population groups. 124 trials were included. The authors reported that palliative care improves cancer, CHF, COPD, and dementia outcomes. Effective models include nurses, social workers, and home-based components, and a focus on communication, psychosocial support, and the patient or caregiver experience. They also noted that high quality research on intervention costs and cost outcomes in palliative care is limited.
- Lewis E, Cardona-Morrell M, Ong KY, Trankle SA, Hillman K. Evidence still insufficient that advance care documentation leads to engagement of healthcare professionals in end-of-life discussions: A systematic review. Palliat Med. 2016 Oct;30(9):807-24. Epub 2016 Mar 7.
This review sought to determine whether advance care documentation encourages healthcare professional's timely engagement in end-of-life discussions. 24 articles from 10 countries with 23,914 subjects were included. Most studies used qualitative or mixed methods. The authors noted that perceived effectiveness of advance care documentation in encouraging end-of-life discussions is high but is mostly derived from low-level evidence studies. The authors highlighted that effectiveness evaluations need to go beyond perception, experience and satisfaction. They recommended large quantitative studies such as randomised control trials or cohort interventions on the measurable effect of ACP documentation on subsequent EOL communications.
- McConnell T, Scott D, Porter S. Music therapy for end-of-life care: An updated systematic review. Palliat Med. 2016 Oct;30(9):877-83. Epub 2016 Mar 4.
The aim of this review was to assess the effectiveness of music therapy versus standard care alone or standard care in combination with other therapies for improving psychological, physiological and social outcomes among adult patients in any palliative care setting. Three studies were included. The data suggested that music therapy may be effective for helping to reduce pain in palliative care patients. They noted that current evidence did not support the use of music therapy to improve overall quality of life in palliative care.
- McCaffrey N, Bradley S, Ratcliffe J, Currow DC. What aspects of quality of life are important from palliative care patients' perspectives? A systematic review of qualitative research. J Pain Symptom Manage. 2016 Aug;52(2):318-328.e5. Epub 2016 May 20.
This review sought to identify which aspects of QOL are important from palliative care patients' perspectives. 24 studies were included identifying eight important aspects of QOL: physical; personal autonomy; emotional; social; spiritual; cognitive; healthcare; and preparatory. The authors suggested that refinement of measures is needed to help ensure services address issues valued by patients.
- Van Beek K, Siouta N, Preston N, Hasselaar J, Hughes S, Payne S, et al. To what degree is palliative care integrated in guidelines and pathways for adult cancer patients in Europe: a systematic literature review. BMC Palliat Care. 2016 Mar 3;15:26.
This review assessed the integration of palliative care in the content of guidelines or pathways of adult cancer patients in Europe. The review included 60 guidelines and 14 pathways. Eighty percent (80%) of the guidelines/pathways emphasised holistic approach and 66% focused on palliative care interventions aimed at reducing suffering. The authors noted that diferences existed in the inclusion of referral criteria.
CareSearch Grey Literature
This dataset includes abstracts of Australian ‘grey’ literature relevant to palliative care. They provide access to work in progress, areas of reflection and development, as well as work that may not be published in traditional avenues.
The following three abstracts are from the 2016 Palliative Care NSW conference:
- Asprey, Gabrielle; Carveth, Sally; Pearce, Kim
Transforming conversations: enabling stories around death and dying.
- Quinn, Tara
Assessment and treatment of lower limb radiation induced fibrosis and lymphoedema in palliative care.
- Connell, Jerushah
Supporting adolescents and young adults whose parents are impacted by cancer.
To access these abstracts or other items from the CareSearch Grey Literature, enter the author’s name, the abstract title, or search terms that describe your interest.
Partner Projects
Advance
Over 100 general practice nurses have already registered and are completing the elearning modules developed as part of the Advance project. The project is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health and is APNA endorsed.
Decision Assist
Two more Decision Assist webinars will be held before the end of 2016. They are:
WHAT'S NEW IN THE PALLIATIVE CARE COMMUNITY?
PCOC State and National Reports for January to June 2016
A series of reports for this period are now available including
NHMRC Grant Funding
A total of $190 million across 320 grants funding health and medical research has been announced. This includes a $10.6 million investment supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health research.
New Palliative Care Bridge videos
Two new videos have been uploaded to the Palliative Care Bridge website.
- Kindness in palliative care
- The carer’s perspective
The resources are available at www.palliativecarebridge.com.au.
Palliative Care Services in Australia 2016-tranche 2
A new update from AIHW provides an overview on Palliative care services in Australia in 2016 relating to:
- Palliative care in residential aged care
- Palliative care in general practice
- Palliative care-related medications
- Palliative care outcomes
Dementia Palliative Care Guidance
The complexities of providing palliative and end of life care to people with dementia is increasingly being recognised. However there is a lack of dementia palliative care practice guidance. The Irish Hospice Foundation has developed a series of evidence based guidance for healthcare staff.
End of life Essentials: New Modules
Healthcare professionals can now access the next three learning modules within End-of-Life Essentials. The modules cover:
Community Pharmacy Trial Grants
Under the Sixth Community Pharmacy Agreement, $50 million was allocated for new and innovative community pharmacy trials to improve clinical outcomes for consumers by extending the role of pharmacists in the delivery of primary healthcare services. Applications close 15 December 2016
CONFERENCES
The following conferences in Australia during 2017 have been identified to help you plan for next year.
- Survivorship 2017: Pathways to Better Policy and Practice
February 2-3
Adelaide Convention Centre, South Australia
- Compassionate Communities Symposium
February 20-21
Sydney, New South Wales
- 15th World Congress on Public Health: Voices, Vision, Action
April 3-7
Melbourne, Victoria
- A world of Rural Health Conference 2017
April 26-2 May
Cairns, Queensland
- Cancer Nurses Society of Australia 20th Annual Congress
June 15-17
Adelaide, South Australia
- 4th International Conference on Ageing in a Foreign Land
June 21-23
Adelaide, South Australia
- Transitions - Australian and New Zealand Association for Health Professional Educators Conference
July 11-14
Adelaide, South Australia
- Health Informatics Society of Australia (HISA) Conference
August 6-9
Brisbane, Queensland
- 2017 Palliative Care Australia Conference
September 6-8
Adelaide, South Australia
You can find all of these resources in the Education section of CareSearch.
PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS
Many services and organisations are making use of the CareSearch promotional materials and have ordered factsheets or brochures for staff, patients and for their families. Materials can also be ordered for education and training activities. If you would like to order materials please visit our online order form or email caresearch@flinders.edu.au.
We will be releasing some new materials for World Hospice and Palliative Care Day and for National Carers Week so, keep an eye out for these new CareSearch resources in October.
You can find us online at:
DISTRIBUTING THE NEWSLETTER
You can print a PDF version of the November @CARESEARCH newsletter (244kb pdf) for yourself or for staff who do not have access to email. You are welcome to forward the @CARESEARCH newsletter to others that may be interested in finding best palliative care research and evidence.
December 2016 Newsletter
The next newsletter will be circulated on the first Monday in December 2016. If you have an item you would like to have considered for inclusion, please send details by Wednesday November 23 to caresearch@flinders.edu.au.
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