• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.119-126
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• 2016

Purpose: This study analyzed the difference in survival time of patients with delirium according to sedative medication. Methods: From January 2012 through December 2013, a retrospective cohort study was performed using the electronic medical records (EMR) of Pusan National University Hospital. Among 900 patients who died from cancer, we selected 240 who suffered delirium based on the EMR. The Nu-DESC delirium screening test was used to diagnose delirium. Results: The median length of delirium period was five days. Delirium characteristics were dominated by inappropriate behaviors (35.0%). Sedatives were administered in 72.1% of the cases. The most frequently used sedative was haloperidol which was used in 59.6% of cases. The delirium period significantly differed by patients' age (F=3.96, P=0.021), cancer type (F=3.31, P=0.010), chemotherapy (t=-3.44 P=0.001). The average survival time was 16.85 days for the sedative medication group and 9.37 days for the non-medication group, which, however, was not significant (t=1.766, P=0.079). Conclusion: In this study, the use of sedatives did not affect patients' survival time. Thus, appropriate sedative medication can be positively recommended to comfort terminal cancer patients and their families.

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.181-189
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• 2010

Purpose: Recently, health policy making is increasingly based on evidence. Therefore, Korean Terminal Cancer Patient Information System (KTCPIS) was developed to meet such need. We aimed to report its developmental process and statistics from 6 months data. Methods: Items for KTCPIS were developed through the consultation with practitioners. E-Velos web-based clinical trial management system was used as a technical platform. Data were collected for patients who were registered to 34 inpatient palliative care services, designated by Ministry of Health, Welfare, and Family Affairs, from $1^{st}$ of January to $30^{th}$ of June in 2009. Descriptive statistics were used for the analysis. Results: From the nationally representative set of 2,940 patients, we obtained the following results. Mean age was $64.8{\pm}12.9$ years, and 56.6% were male. Lung cancer (18.0%) was most common diagnosis. Only 50.3% of patients received the confirmation of terminal diagnosis by two or more physicians, and 69.7% had an insight of terminal diagnosis at the time of admission. About half of patients were admitted to the units on their own without any formal referral. Average and worst pain scores were significantly reduced after 1 week when compared to those at the time of admission. 73.4% faced death in the units, and home-discharge comprised only 13.3%. Mean length of stay per admission was $20.2{\pm}21.2$ days, with median value of 13. Conclusion: Nationally representative data on the characteristics of patients and their caregiver, and current practice of service delivery in palliative care units were obtained through the operation of KTCPIS.

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.145-155
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• 2019

Purpose: Amendment to the Act on Decisions on Life-sustaining Treatment was recently enacted to designate long-term care hospitals as providers of hospice and palliative care. Despite its benefit of providing improved accessibility to end-of-life care, the amendment has raised concerns about its effect on quality of service. This study aimed to use information obtained from an expert group interview and previous studies to compare how cancer patients, family caregivers, physicians, and the general Korean population perceive the potential benefits and risks of this amendment. Methods: We conducted a multicenter cross-sectional study from July to October 2016. The included participants answered a structured questionnaire regarding the extent to which they agree or disagree with the questionnaire items indicating the potential benefits and risks of the amendment. Chi-square tests and univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed. Results: Compared with the general population, physicians agreed more that long-term care hospitals are currently not adequately equipped to provide quality hospice and palliative care. Family caregivers found improved access to long-term care hospitals more favorable but were more likely to agree that these hospitals might prioritize profits, thereby threatening the philosophy of hospice care, and that families might cease to fulfill filial responsibilities. Compared with the general population, cancer patients were more concerned about the potentially decreased service quality in this setting. Conclusion: Although potential service beneficiaries and providers expected improved accessibility of hospice and palliative care services, they were also concerned whether the system can provide adequate quality of end-of-life care.

• Korean Journal of Hospice Care
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.31-41
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• 2003

Background: The purpose of this study is to assess the effectiveness of family support on the quality of life in patients admitted to the hospice facility at Saemmul Hospice. Method: The subjects of this study were 152 terminal cancer patients that were admitted to the hospice facility at Saemmul hospice between January 2002 and February 2003. Their each quality of life were assessed at admission, one, three, five and seven weeks at Saemmul Hospice using a questionnaire prepared by the Saemmul hospice and were anlalyzed by means of T-test. Result: There was no difference in the quality of life score between patients with family support and patients without family support in terms of physical, psychosocial, and spiritual aspects in the admission. There was no difference in the quality of life score between the patients with frequent family member's visit(>=8) and less frequent family visit(<=7), and between the patients whose family members stayed at the facility for 24hrs and the patients without staying family members. There was no difference in the quality of life score between the patients in low-middle and low-high class among 9 classes of familial economic status(high-high, high-middle, high-low, middle-high, middle-middle, middle-low, low-high, low-middle, low-low). There was no difference in the quality of life score between the patients whose familial religion were Christianity and the patients with other religions. After 1, 3, 5, 7 weeks assessment, the scores in the physical, psychosocial, spiritual aspect of quality of life were increased. Conclusion: The results suggest that family support is important to improve the quality of life in hospice patients and hospice care team is needed to replace 24 hours of family care. There is a urgent need of trained hospice care teams, so training programs for physicians, nurses, clergies, social workers, and volunteers are necessary.

• Korean Journal of Hospice Care
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.75-85
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• 2005

The objective of this research is to provide the basic material for effective hospice care by analyzing the recognition of families who have terminally ill patients over death. To do so, this research is designed to investigate the general tendency toward death and changes after hospice care. To analyse the initial status of the recognition about the death, questionnaires were provided to the families of the terminally ill patients who were taken hospice care from June 1st, 2005 to September 10th, 2005 at Saemmul Hospice. The same questionnaires were distributed to research some changes of the recognition of the death after 3 weeks. As the Data Analysis Methodology, SPSS v.10.0 statistics program were utilized. The summary of this research is as follows. First, by gender, it is analyzed that women have more fear than men in terms of incompetence sense after death. By religion, Christians have less fear than other religious people in terms of fear toward after death and general sense of death. Second, those who experienced deaths of close family members, relatives, friends for the past 3 years have more fear toward the moment of death than those who did not experience it. Third, statistically valid difference was found in terms of fear toward the moment of death, fear toward incompetence, fear toward after death, and fear toward death before and after the hospice care was taken. Based on the result of this research, terminally ill patients' families facing death have shown significant differences on fear and incompetence before and after hospice care was offered. It is necessary that the hospice care should be settled more professionally by expanding the opportunities of hospice care and institutionalizing the system. In addition, hospice activities which are focused on providing hope after death and facing death with dignity and peace should be expanded increasingly as the family members who experienced deaths showed higher degree of fear and powerlessness and Christians have less fear toward death with the help of biblical influence. It is also required that hospice care specialized in recognizing the importance of terminal cancer patients and their families at the same time.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.300-310
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to compare the change of Well-Dying awareness and decision of university student before and after taking the course of death study. A questionnaire survey was conducted for university students 93 before education, 117 after education who participated in the Death Studies related lectures at Daejeon Metropolitan City for 15 weeks from August to December 2016. The general characteristics of survey are gender, age. grade, major, marriage condition, religion, family member living together and health status. Four items on the perception aspect of death, five items on the aspect of acceptance of death, seven items of death decision and twelve items for death education's interest and importance were configured as a reference scale. The statistical method carried out the chi-square test, the independent sample t-test, and the decision tree analysis. Based on the decision tree, At the time of preparation for death(cancer patient, terminal patient, etc.) and the elderly(65 years old or older), the education transition rate was 66.7%. But After education, 65.3% of the respondents were in adult, middle and high school, under elementary school, university, and graduate school, which showed a significant difference. Therefore we are looking for death education's effectiveness and setting directions for education's period and contents. the negative viewpoints and worries about the implementation of death education at elementary, middle and high schools and universities are resolved and the death education will positively affect the change of attitude of students.

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.39-47
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• 2019

Purpose: This study was performed to investigate the current status of pediatric palliative care provision and how it is perceived by the palliative care experts. Methods: A descriptive study was conducted with 61 hospice institutions. From September through October 2017, a questionnaire was completed by experts from the participating institutions. Data were analyzed using SPSS 21.0. Results: Among 61 institutions, palliative care is currently provided for pediatric cancer patients by 11 institutions (18.0%), all of which are concentrated in Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi and Gyengsang provinces; 85.2% of all do not plan to provide specialized pediatric palliative care in the future. According to the experts, the main barriers in providing pediatric palliative care were the insufficient number of trained specialists regardless of the delivery type. Experts said that it was appropriate to intervene when children were diagnosed with cancer that was less likely to be cured (33.7%) and to move to palliative care institutions when their conditions worsened (38.2%); and it was necessary to establish a specialized pediatric palliative care system, independent from the existing institutions for adult patients (73.8%). Conclusion: It is necessary to develop an education program to establish a nationwide pediatric palliative care centers. Pediatric palliative care intervention should be provided upon diagnosis rather than at the point of death. Patients should be transferred to palliative care institutions after intervention by their existing pediatric palliative care team at the hospital is started.

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.31-42
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• 2002

Purpose : The purpose of this study was to evaluate the present status of hospice palliative care programs in Korea as a basic database for standardization of hospice palliative care. Method : The data was collected from July to October, 2001. The instrument used for this study was the questionnaires which was consisted of the general characteristics of organization, recipient of service, manpower, contents of service, financial conditions and facilities. Sixty-four hospice palliative care programs answered the questionnaires, confirmed by telephone. Results : They were 40 hospital-based hospice palliative care programs and 24 nonmedical hospice palliative care programs. 11 Hospital-based hospice palliative programs have isolated unit or hospital affiliated free standing hospice. 6 Non-hospital hospice palliative programs have a free standing hospice. Major subjects of hospice palliative program were terminal cancer patients but patients with non-terminal illness were also included. Only 24 of 64 hospice palliative programs had all of the essential professionals : physicians, nurses, social workers, and clergies. Home hospice palliative care programs have a referral system in hospital based (89.7%) and nonmedical programs (73.7%). 24hr hospice are were provided in 26 hospital-based (65.0%) and 9nonmedical programs (37.5%). There were rooms for family in half of hospital-based programs. 73.9% of hospice palliative care programs have financial problems. 62.0% of Hospice palliative care programs need financial support from government. Conclusion : 64 Hospice palliative care programs provided hospice palliative services but had many problems in manpower, quality of care and facility. For improving the quality of terminal patients' life and promoting the cost effectiveness of health care resources, it is necessary to consider the standardization and institutionalization of hospice palliative care.

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.86-92
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• 2006

Purpose: This study was conducted to develop a measuring tool for spiritual care performance of hospice team members. The tool may be utilized for providing hospice patients with more systematic and standardized spiritual tares. Methods: The concept and questions of the tool were developed, and then its validity and reliability were tested. For the validity and reliability tests, a self-reported questionnaire comprising 33 questions with 4 point scale ($1{\sim}4$), was developed, and the data were collected from 192 hospice team members from December 2005 to February 2006. Results: Thirty three questions, drafted through literature review and professional consultation, were reviewed by 20 professionals for their validity, were revised and supplemented resulted in the final 33 questions. The questions with a correlation coefficient grater than .30 were selected: all the 33 questions were selected based on this criterion. The reliability coefficient, Cronbarh's ${\alpha}$, was 0.95. The 33 questions were analyzed for factors, and six factors were extracted: relationship formation and communication, encouragement and promotion of spiritual growth, linking with spiritual resources, preparation of death, evaluation and quality control for spiritual intervention, Intervention, and spiritual assessment for intervention. Conclusion: The tool developed in this study includes six factors and has high level of reliability. This tool Will greatly contribute to assess and improve hospice care services, providing systematic and standardized spiritual cares for terminally ill patients and their families.

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.196-205
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• 2008

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the current status of hospice palliative care facilities, and to identify problems and improve hospice palliative care in Korea. Methods: The questionnaire survey was implemented from October to December, 2007. It was consisted of general characteristics of organization, health manpower, facilities & equipments, service programs, and so on. Sixty two (79.5%) out of 78 hospice palliative care facilities returned the questionnaires. Results: They were 42 hospital-based hospice palliative care hospitals and 9 clinics, and most of them are located at central metropolitan areas (Seoul and Gyeonggi Province). more than 80% of hospitals met with the requirements (one doctor per 10 patients and one nurse per 1.5 patients), whereas 42.9% of clinics met the requirements. Approximately 22% of them met the requirement of sick room (4 patients for 1 room). Most of them provided various hospice palliative care programs. The proportion of giving regular education programs to hospice palliative care personnels were about half (41.9%). Thirty two (51.6%) facilities provided home visiting hospice palliative care service. Conclusion: There were lack of enough health manpower, rooms, and programmes and they varied among facilities. It is necessary to increase the number of hospice palliative care facilities with consideration of regional fair distribution and standardization of programmes.