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The impact of COVID-19 on palliative care workers across the world: A qualitative analysis of responses to open-ended questions
- Tania Pastrana, Liliana De Lima, Katherine Pettus, Alison Ramsey, Genevieve Napier, Roberto Wenk, Lukas Radbruch
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- Journal:
- Palliative & Supportive Care / Volume 19 / Issue 2 / April 2021
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 02 March 2021, pp. 187-192
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- Article
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Objective
With over two million deaths and almost 100 million confirmed cases, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a “tsunami of suffering.” Health care workers, including palliative care workers, have been severely impacted. This study explores how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted palliative care workers around the world and describes the coping strategies they have adopted to face their specific situation.
MethodWe conducted a qualitative analysis of written, unstructured comments provided by respondents to a survey of IAHPC members between May and June 2020. Free text was exported to MAX QDA, and a thematic analysis was performed by reading the comments and developing a coding frame.
ResultsSeventy-seven palliative care workers from 41 countries submitted at least one written comment, resulting in a data corpus of 10,694 words and a total of 374 coded comments. Eight main themes are emerged from the analysis: palliative care development, workforce impact, work reorganization, palliative care reconceptualization, economic and financial impacts, increased risk, emotional impact, and coping strategies.
Significance of resultsThe pandemic has had a huge impact on palliative care workers including their ability to work and their financial status. It has generated increased workloads and placed them in vulnerable positions that affect their emotional well-being, resulting in distress and burnout. Counseling and support networks provide important resilience-building buffers. Coping strategies such as team and family support are important factors in workers’ capacity to adapt and respond. The pandemic is changing the concept and praxis of palliative care. Government officials, academia, providers, and affected populations need to work together to develop, and implement steps to ensure palliative care integration into response preparedness plans so as not to leave anyone behind, including health workers.
34 - Cancer pain and palliative care in the developing world
- from SECTION X - SYSTEMS OF CARE
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- By ROBERTO WENK, Programa Argentino de Medicina Paliativa-Fundación FEMEBA, DANIELA MOSOIU, Hospice Case Sperantei Brasov, M.R. RAJAGOPAL, Trivandum Institute of Palliative Sciences
- Edited by Eduardo D. Bruera, University of Texas, Houston, Russell K. Portenoy, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York
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- Book:
- Cancer Pain
- Published online:
- 06 July 2010
- Print publication:
- 12 October 2009, pp 608-626
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- Chapter
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Summary
Introduction
Throughout the world, millions of people suffer from chronic diseases, HIV/AIDS, and the aging process. The majority of these people are living in developing countries, where resources are limited, diseases often are diagnosed late, and curative facilities are scarce.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 58 million people per year will die during the projection period 2005–2010, and that most of these deaths (45 million) will occur in less-developed countries.
At least 35 million (60%) of those dying every year will have a prolonged, advanced illness, with similar needs – physical, psychological, social, and existential – that are relatively independent of the diseases from which they suffer. In fact, 60% of cancer patients will have pain.
Cancer pain management (CPM) and palliative care (PC) delivered according to WHO guidelines provide cost-effective care to relieve suffering and improve the quality of life of patients and families. Millions of people need access to them as part of an integral response to their needs. However, the provision of CPM and PC in developing countries is a problem; with very few exceptions, these programs are not yet incorporated into health systems, and tragically the vast majority of patients do not have access to them.
Because of the aforementioned reasons, some experts estimate that many patients, most from developing countries, are not getting the quality of care they should receive; effective CPM and PC are not available to all those who need them because of a lack of appropriate policies, inadequate education of health personnel, poor drug availability and accessibility, and lack of public awareness that suffering can be reduced with relatively inexpensive methods.