Evaluating Palliative Care: Establishing the Evidence Base
Margaret Robbins
Abstract
The past 30 years has seen a huge expansion in the provision of palliative care services. Because palliative medicine is a multidisciplinary specialty – combining the expertise of oncologists, anaesthetists, nurses, and many other therapeutic groups – the effectiveness of such treatment can be very difficult to measure. Additionally, research involving terminally ill patients and their carers can also present a number of practical and ethical problems. In spite of this, current health policy demands evidence of the effectiveness and value for money of health service interventions at all levels ... More
The past 30 years has seen a huge expansion in the provision of palliative care services. Because palliative medicine is a multidisciplinary specialty – combining the expertise of oncologists, anaesthetists, nurses, and many other therapeutic groups – the effectiveness of such treatment can be very difficult to measure. Additionally, research involving terminally ill patients and their carers can also present a number of practical and ethical problems. In spite of this, current health policy demands evidence of the effectiveness and value for money of health service interventions at all levels of complexity, including the service level. This book provides an introduction to the theory and practice of the evaluation of palliative care services. It examines the methodological issues involved in the evaluation of palliative care and outlines a practical approach that is readily applicable to many other health care interventions. In particular, research issues involving terminally ill patients and their carers are analysed and discussed, and approaches suggested for future work.
Keywords:
palliative care,
palliative medicine,
multidisciplinary specialty,
oncologists,
anaesthetists,
nurses,
therapeutic groups,
treatment,
patients,
carers
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 1998 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780192626219 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2011 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780192626219.001.0001 |
