Refining a Checklist for Reporting Patient Populations and Service Characteristics in Hospice and Palliative Care Research

详细信息	查看全文 | 推荐本文 |

• 作者：David C. Currow ; BMed ; MPH ; FRACP^a ; ^{david.currow@flinders.edu.au} ; Jennifer J. Tieman ; BSc ; MBA^a ; Aine Greene ; FRCNA^a ; S. Yousuf Zafar ; MD ; MHS^b ; Jane L. Wheeler ; MSPH^b ; Amy P. Abernethy ; MD^a ; ^b
• 关键词：Generalizability ; palliative care ; supportive care ; applicability ; study characteristics ; reporting guidelines ; publishing/standards
• 刊名：Journal of Pain and Symptom Management
• 出版年：2012
• 期刊代码：166_08853924
• 类别：med
• 出版时间：May, 2012
• 卷：43
• 期：5
• 页码：902-910
• 文件大小：98 K

摘要

Context

In specialist hospice and palliative care services, variations occur in diagnoses and prognoses of subpopulations referred, service configuration, and the health systems delivering care. These three levels of variation limit the ability to generalize study findings.

Objectives

This article reports on coding one year of palliative care research using a previously developed checklist. The aims were to 1) quantify current reporting of factors related to generalizability in specialist palliative care research; 2) review and potentially refine the checklist in light of the first aim; 3) demonstrate the feasibility of collecting these data; and 4) set out simple processes to aid researchers in reporting, and clinicians in applying, new research evidence in hospice and palliative care.

Methods

A previously published checklist (five domains, 14 core subdomains, and 24 noncore subdomains) was used to code all research articles (n = 189) published in 2007 in the three leading palliative care research journals.

Results

The most frequently reported subdomains were patient age, gender, and diagnosis; model of service delivery; and patient performance status. Data in subdomains, including time from referral to death, socioeconomic indices, and ethnicity, were rarely reported; none reported whole-of-service or whole-of-population data. In total, 2646 (189 脳 14) core subdomains could have been reported. Data were provided in 28%(746/2646).

Conclusion

Checklists such as the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials evaluate study design, focusing mainly on internal validity. The proposed checklist deals with specific content of hospice and palliative care, focusing on external validity.