Dataset Information

Diagnosing dying: an integrative literature review.

ABSTRACT:

Background

To ensure patients and families receive appropriate end-of-life care pathways and guidelines aim to inform clinical decision making. Ensuring appropriate outcomes through the use of these decision aids is dependent on timely use. Diagnosing dying is a complex clinical decision, and most of the available practice checklists relate to cancer. There is a need to review evidence to establish diagnostic indicators that death is imminent on the basis of need rather than a cancer diagnosis.

Aim

To examine the evidence as to how patients are judged by clinicians as being in the final hours or days of life.

Design

Integrative literature review.

Data sources

Five electronic databases (2001-2011): Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) on The Cochrane Library, MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO and CINAHL. The search yielded a total of 576 hits, 331 titles and abstracts were screened, 42 papers were retrieved and reviewed and 23 articles were included.

Results

Analysis reveals an overarching theme of uncertainty in diagnosing dying and two subthemes: (1) 'characteristics of dying' involve dying trajectories that incorporate physical, social, spiritual and psychological decline towards death; (2) 'treatment orientation' where decision making related to diagnosing dying may remain focused towards biomedical interventions rather than systematic planning for end-of-life care.

Conclusions

The findings of this review support the explicit recognition of 'uncertainty in diagnosing dying' and the need to work with and within this concept. Clinical decision making needs to allow for recovery where that potential exists, but equally there is the need to avoid futile interventions.

SUBMITTER: Kennedy C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4145438 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Diagnosing dying: an integrative literature review.

Kennedy Catriona C Brooks-Young Patricia P Brunton Gray Carol C Larkin Phil P Connolly Michael M Wilde-Larsson Bodil B Larsson Maria M Smith Tracy T Chater Susie S

BMJ supportive & palliative care 20140429 3

<h4>Background</h4>To ensure patients and families receive appropriate end-of-life care pathways and guidelines aim to inform clinical decision making. Ensuring appropriate outcomes through the use of these decision aids is dependent on timely use. Diagnosing dying is a complex clinical decision, and most of the available practice checklists relate to cancer. There is a need to review evidence to establish diagnostic indicators that death is imminent on the basis of need rather than a cancer dia ...[more]

PMID: 24780536

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Project description:BackgroundDecision-making and strategies to improve service delivery must be supported by reliable health data to generate consistent evidence on health status. The data quality management process must ensure the reliability of collected data. Consequently, various methodologies to improve the quality of services are applied in the health field. At the same time, scientific research is constantly evolving to improve data quality through better reproducibility and empowerment of researchers and offers patient groups tools for secured data sharing and privacy compliance.ObjectiveThrough an integrative literature review, the aim of this work was to identify and evaluate digital health technology interventions designed to support the conducting of health research based on data quality.MethodsA search was conducted in 6 electronic scientific databases in January 2022: PubMed, SCOPUS, Web of Science, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Digital Library, Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature, and Latin American and Caribbean Health Sciences Literature. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses checklist and flowchart were used to visualize the search strategy results in the databases.ResultsAfter analyzing and extracting the outcomes of interest, 33 papers were included in the review. The studies covered the period of 2017-2021 and were conducted in 22 countries. Key findings revealed variability and a lack of consensus in assessing data quality domains and metrics. Data quality factors included the research environment, application time, and development steps. Strategies for improving data quality involved using business intelligence models, statistical analyses, data mining techniques, and qualitative approaches.ConclusionsThe main barriers to health data quality are technical, motivational, economical, political, legal, ethical, organizational, human resources, and methodological. The data quality process and techniques, from precollection to gathering, postcollection, and analysis, are critical for the final result of a study or the quality of processes and decision-making in a health care organization. The findings highlight the need for standardized practices and collaborative efforts to enhance data quality in health research. Finally, context guides decisions regarding data quality strategies and techniques.International registered report identifier (irrid)RR2-10.1101/2022.05.31.22275804.

Dataset Information

Diagnosing dying: an integrative literature review.

Background

Aim

Design

Data sources

Results

Conclusions

Publications

Diagnosing dying: an integrative literature review.

Similar Datasets

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