Outlook-an intervention to improve quality of life in serious illness

这项研究将论证临终准备和完成干预是否会减少 焦虑、抑郁、疼痛等症状，并改善功能状态、精神健康和 生活质量。如果有效，这种干预提供了一种简短、廉价和可运输的非内科医生 改善个人在限制生命的疾病后期的体验的治疗方法。努力 改善临终关怀通常侧重于疼痛和症状控制，但有效的干预措施即使有，也很少。 说明准备工作和完成工作。我们设计了一个临终准备和完工 干预，基于人类发展文献，将生命的完成确定为一项发展任务 健康传播学和临床心理学中的有力证据表明了 表达对健康结果的情绪和压力。我们的具体目标是1)评估 促进关于临终准备和完成临终健康后果的讨论的干预措施 人，包括疼痛和症状，身体功能，情绪功能(焦虑和抑郁)， 精神幸福和生命末期的生活质量，以及2)评估此类讨论的内容， 审查与性别、种族、社会经济地位、沟通质量有关的任务差异 家庭、灵性和疾病阶段，以提高对量身定做干预必要性的理解 基于人口统计数据或疾病发展轨迹中的位置的内容。我们建议进行一项随机对照试验 以评估干预措施。140名晚期癌症、充血性心力衰竭或慢性阻塞性肺病患者将被随机分配 分成两个干预组中的一个，完成一系列简短的预测措施。第一组中的主题 小组(“治疗”)将与主持人会面三次，每次45分钟。在第一个 在课程中，受试者将被要求讨论与生活回顾有关的问题。一周后，参与者将被 被要求更深入地谈论后悔、宽恕和未完成的事情等问题。在决赛中 一周后的课程，主题将集中在遗产和遗产上。第二组的受试者 (“注意力控制”)将与主持人会面三次，每次45分钟，并被要求 听一张无导游的放松CD。一周和两周后，所有小组的参与者都将收到 由盲人面试者实施的测试后措施。

This study will demonstrate whether an end-of-life preparation and completion intervention reduces anxiety, depression, pain and other symptoms and improves functional status, spiritual well-being, and quality of life. If effective, the intervention offers a brief, inexpensive, and transportable non-physician treatment method for improving the experience of individuals in the latter stages of life-limiting illness. Efforts to improve end-of-care often focus on pain and symptom control, but few, if any, effective interventions exist addressing preparation arid completion. We designed an end-of-life preparation and completion intervention, based on the human development literature identifying life completion as a developmental task and the robust evidence in health communication and clinical psychology that addresses the value of expressing emotions and stress on health outcomes. Our specific aims are 1) evaluate the impact of an intervention that promotes discussions of end-of-life preparation and completion on health outcomes in dying persons, including pain and symptoms, physical-function, emotional function (anxiety and depression), spiritual well-being, and quality of life at the end of life and 2) evaluate the content of the such discussions, examining task variation associated with gender, ethnicity, socio-economic status, quality of communication with family, spirituality, and stage of illness to improve understanding of the need for tailored intervention content based on demographics or location in the trajectory of illness. We propose a randomized control trial to evaluate the intervention. 140 patients with advanced cancer, CHF, or COPD will be randomly assigned into one of two intervention groups and complete a brief battery of pre-test measures. Subjects in the first group ("treatment") will meet with a facilitator three times for a period of forty-five minutes each. In the first session, subjects will be asked to discuss issues related to life review. A week later, participants will be asked to speak in more depth about issues such as regret, forgiveness and things left undone. In the final session, a week hence, subjects will focus on heritage and legacy. The subjects in the second group ("attention control") will meet with a facilitator three times for a period of forty-five minutes each and be asked to listen to a non-guided relaxation CD. One week and two weeks later, participants in all groups will receive post-test measures administered by a blinded interviewer.