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☐ ☆ ✇ Journal of Advanced Nursing

Advance Care Planning in Oncology Nursing: An Interpretive Description Study

Por: Heather M. Kilgour · Leah K. Lambert · A. Fuchsia Howard · Michael Mckenzie · Sally Thorne — Septiembre 25th 2025 at 07:02

ABSTRACT

Aim

To explore oncology nursing advance care planning practices and understand how to better support nurses in conducting advance care planning with patients and their families.

Design

Qualitative interpretive descriptive methodology.

Methods

Semi-structured, individual telephone or Zoom interviews with 19 oncology nurses in a Western province of Canada between May and August 2022. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, de-identified, and analysed using inductive, thematic, and constant comparative techniques.

Results

Oncology nurses highlighted several factors affecting their ability to engage in advance care planning, including (1) uncertainties related to the nursing role in advance care planning, such as how and when a nurse ought to engage; (2) the educational, experiential, and training environment; and (3) structural barriers, such as a lack of time, space, and privacy; models of care that inhibit nurses from developing longitudinal relationships with their patients; and team dynamics that affect advance care planning interdisciplinary collaboration.

Conclusion

To create environments that support oncology nurses to conduct advance care planning, the findings suggest uncertainties be addressed through a clear and cohesive organisational approach to advance care planning and ongoing, integrated educational opportunities. Further, service delivery models may need to be restructured such that nurses have dedicated time and space for nurse-led advance care planning and opportunities to develop trusting relationships with both patients and their interdisciplinary colleagues.

Implications for the Profession and/or Patient Care

Impact

Oncology nurses recognised the value of advance care planning in supporting patient-centred care and shared decision making, yet they reported limited engagement in advance care planning in their practice. To support oncology nurses in conducting advance care planning, healthcare leaders may address (1) advance care planning-related uncertainties and (2) structural barriers that prevent nurses from engaging in advance care planning with patients and their families. Findings may guide modifications to care models, enhancing support for oncology nurses in conducting advance care planning.

Reporting Method

We selected and adhered to the Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research (COREQ) as the most applicable guideline.

Patient or Public Contribution

No patient or public contribution.

☐ ☆ ✇ Journal of Advanced Nursing

Development and Validation of the End‐of‐Life Assessment Tool for Advanced Dementia: A Multi Method Study

Por: Carolyn Bourke · Lynn Chenoweth · Ekavi Georgousopoulou · Anna Williams — Agosto 6th 2025 at 11:55

ABSTRACT

Aims

To develop and validate the End-of-Life Care Assessment Tool for Dementia (EoLC-ATD).

Design

A methodological study with multiple phases.

Methods

Five sub-studies comprising: a review of 90 validated dementia measures to compile an item bank of advanced dementia symptoms; focus groups with registered nurses on advanced dementia symptom identification and relevance of item bank inclusions; Delphi surveys with dementia experts seeking consensus on the EoLC-ATD constructs and items; pilot testing of the EoLC-ATD; and field testing of the EoLC-ATD in persons with dementia.

Results

The item-bank included 180 symptoms, most of which focus group nurses (n = 17) identified as occurring in advanced dementia. Delphi surveys with dementia experts (n = 31) achieved 70% consensus for 25 of 26 EoLC-ATD items. Pilot testing of the EoLC-ATD by two nurses in eight persons with dementia showed good agreement for six constructs (Cohen's Kappa 0.856–0.927) and 26 items (Cronbach's alpha 77.0). An ‘other sympto’ item was included following RN recommendation. The 27-item EoLC-ATD field tested by 17 nurses in persons with dementia (n = 113) accurately identified advanced dementia symptoms (Cronbach's alpha 77.0, p < 0.001). Mortality at 180 days after baseline EoLC-ATD was significant (p < 0.001, area under the ROC curve p = 0.769).

Conclusion

The EoLC-ATD accurately and reliably identified symptoms of advanced dementia.

Implications for the Profession and/or Patient Care

The EoLC-ATD provides registered nurses with a single measure of advanced dementia symptoms that will help in identifying symptom-responsive palliative care requirements.

Impact

The EoLC-ATD will address the current lack of a validated dementia symptom measure for use by aged care home registered nurses to identify unique palliative and end-of-life care needs according to presenting symptoms in persons living with advanced dementia.

Reporting Method

STROBE Statement for cohort and mixed methods studies.

Patient or Public Contribution

An eight-member Expert Advisory Group, which provided guidance and advice throughout the study, was composed of three carers of persons living with dementia, two dementia care clinicians, a dementia care clinical educator, and two dementia clinician researchers.

☐ ☆ ✇ Journal of Nursing Scholarship

Automating sedation state assessments using natural language processing

Por: Aaron Conway · Jack Li · Mohammad Goudarzi Rad · Blair Warren · Sebastian Mafeld · Babak Taati — Marzo 26th 2024 at 08:00

Abstract

Introduction

Common goals for procedural sedation are to control pain and ensure the patient is not moving to an extent that is impeding safe progress or completion of the procedure. Clinicians perform regular assessments of the adequacy of procedural sedation in accordance with these goals to inform their decision-making around sedation titration and also for documentation of the care provided. Natural language processing could be applied to real-time transcriptions of audio recordings made during procedures in order to classify sedation states that involve movement and pain, which could then be integrated into clinical documentation systems. The aim of this study was to determine whether natural language processing algorithms will work with sufficient accuracy to detect sedation states during procedural sedation.

Design

A prospective observational study was conducted.

Methods

Audio recordings from consenting participants undergoing elective procedures performed in the interventional radiology suite at a large academic hospital were transcribed using an automated speech recognition model. Sentences of transcribed text were used to train and evaluate several different NLP pipelines for a text classification task. The NLP pipelines we evaluated included a simple Bag-of-Words (BOW) model, an ensemble architecture combining a linear BOW model and a “token-to-vector” (Tok2Vec) component, and a transformer-based architecture using the RoBERTa pre-trained model.

Results

A total of 15,936 sentences from transcriptions of 82 procedures was included in the analysis. The RoBERTa model achieved the highest performance among the three models with an area under the ROC curve (AUC-ROC) of 0.97, an F1 score of 0.87, a precision of 0.86, and a recall of 0.89. The Ensemble model showed a similarly high AUC-ROC of 0.96, but lower F1 score of 0.79, precision of 0.83, and recall of 0.77. The BOW approach achieved an AUC-ROC of 0.97 and the F1 score was 0.7, precision was 0.83 and recall was 0.66.

Conclusion

The transformer-based architecture using the RoBERTa pre-trained model achieved the best classification performance. Further research is required to confirm the that this natural language processing pipeline can accurately perform text classifications with real-time audio data to allow for automated sedation state assessments.

Clinical Relevance

Automating sedation state assessments using natural language processing pipelines would allow for more timely documentation of the care received by sedated patients, and, at the same time, decrease documentation burden for clinicians. Downstream applications can also be generated from the classifications, including for example real-time visualizations of sedation state, which may facilitate improved communication of the adequacy of the sedation between clinicians, who may be performing supervision remotely. Also, accumulation of sedation state assessments from multiple procedures may reveal insights into the efficacy of particular sedative medications or identify procedures where the current approach for sedation and analgesia is not optimal (i.e. a significant amount of time spent in “pain” or “movement” sedation states).

☐ ☆ ✇ Journal of Clinical Nursing

Older adults' lived experiences of physical rehabilitation for acquired brain injury and their perceptions of well‐being: A qualitative phenomenological study

Por: Panagiota Lafiatoglou · Caroline Ellis‐Hill · Mary Gouva · Avraam Ploumis · Stefanos Mantzoukas — Noviembre 28th 2023 at 11:38

Abstract

Aim

To explore the experiences of older adults (65+) living with acquired brain injury regarding their sense of well-being during physical rehabilitation within the Greek Healthcare System.

Background

With the increasing ageing population and the life-changing effects of acquired brain injury, there is a need to focus on care for older people and their potential to live well. Rehabilitation systems deserve greater attention, especially in improving the well-being of those who are using them.

Design

A qualitative study design with a hermeneutic phenomenological approach was used.

Methods

Fourteen older adults living with acquired brain injury and undergoing physical rehabilitation in Greece were purposively sampled. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect data and were thematically analysed using van Manen's and Clarke and Braun's methods. The COREQ checklist was followed.

Results

Four themes emerged from the analysis: (1) Challenges of new life situation, (2) Seeking emotional and practical support through social interaction, (3) Identifying contextual processes of rehabilitation, (4) Realising the new self.

Conclusions

The subjective experiences, intersubjective relations and contextual conditions influence the sense of well-being among older adults living with acquired brain injury, thus impacting the realisation of their new self. The study makes the notion of well-being a more tangible concept by relating it to the degree of adaptation to the new situation and the potential for older adults to create a future whilst living with acquired brain injury.

Relevance for Clinical Practice

Identifying the factors that impact older adults' sense of well-being during rehabilitation can guide healthcare professionals in enhancing the quality of care offered and providing more dignified and humanising care.

Patient or Public Contribution

Older adults living with acquired brain injury were involved in the study as participants providing the research data.

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