[Management of patients with chronic pain: emerging perspectives and current practices.] / La gestione del paziente con dolore cronico: prospettive emergenti e pratiche attuali.

According to the International association for the study of pain (Aisd), chronic pain is «an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with, or resembling, ongoing, or potential tissue damage¼. The evolution of the definition of chronic pain has recognized the centrality of subjective and multidimensional valence, involving biological, psychological, and social aspects. Hence, there is a need to introduce patient-centered medicine and broaden the chronic pain management modalities. The primary clinical goal purpose does not end with the biological dimension and treatment of pain but should include the patient's individual experience and maintain an interdisciplinary value, including pharmacological therapy, as well as psychological care and integrative interventions. The perspectives illustrated provided the theoretical rationale for the organization of the Pain Clinic at Asst Santi Paolo e Carlo University Hospitals in Milan. The articulation of this care pathway can serve as a model, which can be applied to other clinical settings, where an interdisciplinary and multimodal approach is needed.

The impact of visiting the Intensive Care Unit on children's and adolescents' psychological well-being: A systematic review.

OBJECTIVES: The visits of children/adolescents in adult intensive care units are increasingly more common. However, few studies examine the psychological impact of visiting. This systematic review aims to summarise the psychological effects that visiting family members has on children/adolescents. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY: A systematic review of research articles published from 1990 to January 2021 was conducted using PsycInfo, PubMed, and CINAHL. Inclusion/exclusion criteria were applied. Those studies included were evaluated using the Joanna Briggs Institute Critical Appraisal tools. A narrative synthesis of the results was conducted. SETTING: Adult intensive care unit. RESULTS: The review identified five studies (three of which qualitative), involving 141 children/adolescents. Although the experience of visiting was potentially traumatic, it enabled children/adolescents to better understand the reality and to preserve their relationships with family members. The impact of visiting was influenced by individual characteristics (e.g., age, past traumatic experiences) and by organisational characteristics (e.g., facilitated visit or not). Regardless of visitation, most children/adolescents presented anxiety and depression symptoms that need to be addressed. CONCLUSIONS: Child/adolescent visitation seems to have positive effects, provided there is preparation and facilitation. Clinicians should pay attention to individual characteristics and optimise organisational factors (e.g., environment) in order to minimise potentially trauma-inducing aspects.

How to communicate with families living in complete isolation.

IMPORTANCE: During the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, a complete physical isolation has been worldwide introduced. The impossibility of visiting their loved ones during the hospital stay causes additional distress for families: in addition to the worries about clinical recovery, they may feel exclusion and powerlessness, anxiety, depression, mistrust in the care team and post-traumatic stress disorder. The impossibility of conducting the daily meetings with families poses a challenge for healthcare professionals. OBJECTIVE: This paper aims to delineate and share consensus statements in order to enable healthcare team to provide by telephone or video calls an optimal level of communication with patient's relatives under circumstances of complete isolation. EVIDENCE REVIEW: PubMed, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Database of Abstracts and Reviews of Effectiveness and the AHCPR Clinical Guidelines and Evidence Reports were explored from 1999 to 2019. Exclusion criteria were: poor or absent relevance regarding the aim of the consensus statements, studies prior to 1999, non-English language. Since the present pandemic context is completely new, unexpected and unexplored, there are not randomised controlled trials regarding clinical communication in a setting of complete isolation. Thus, a multiprofessional taskforce of physicians, nurses, psychologists and legal experts, together with some family members and former intensive care unit patients was established by four Italian national scientific societies. Using an e-Delphi methodology, general and specific questions were posed, relevant topics were argumented, until arriving to delineate position statements and practical checklist, which were set and evaluated through an evidence-based consensus procedure. FINDINGS: Ten statements and two practical checklists for phone or video calls were drafted and evaluated; they are related to who, when, why and how family members must be given clinical information under circumstances of complete isolation. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: The statements and the checklists offer a structured methodology in order to ensure a good-quality communication between healthcare team and family members even in isolation, confirming that time dedicated to communication has to be intended as a time of care.

Promoting resilience in the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic: Psychological interventions for intensive care unit (ICU) clinicians and family members.

This contribution draws from the experience of intensive care unit psychologists at 2 frontline hospitals in Milan, Italy, during the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this contribution, we describe the main psychological needs observed in clinicians and in the families of COVID-19 patients and illustrate some psychological interventions implemented to respond to these needs. Containing emotions and promoting resilience were the aims of our interventions. In the future, psychological interventions should focus on the elaboration of traumatic experiences and losses. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Improving communication toward ICU families to facilitate understanding and reduce stress. Protocol for a multicenter randomized and controlled Italian study.

OBJECTIVE: Families of ICU patients have a pressing need for information: they find themselves suddenly in a complex technical environment often because of a life-threatening illness of a loved one. Some evidence suggests that specific communication tools (like websites or brochures) could improve the experience of ICU families. DESIGN: Randomized, multicenter, stepped wedge trial for large-scale assessment of the effectiveness of a multitasking intervention to improve communication with families of critically ill patients. MAIN OUTCOME: correct understanding of the prognosis. SECONDARY OUTCOMES: correct understanding of medical treatments, prevalence of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress symptoms in the first ICU week. Prevalence of PTSD 6 months from ICU discharge. Empathy and burnout among ICU staff. Prevalence of refusals for tissues/organ donation, and medical claims. SUBJECTS: 2100 ICU relatives of critically ill patients. INTERVENTIONS: The intervention employs specific tools especially designed to raise the correctness of information and to improve the quality of communication: a website presenting the ICU world and justifying the relatives' emotions, with a webpage specifically dedicated to each participating ICU; a standard brochure; eight posters for the families' waiting room and a signboard for the ICU door. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: The study plans to assess these materials in up to 300 Italian ICUs that will participate, according to a five waves program, each one with randomized starting order. This way the effect of the intervention will be evaluated simultaneously. CONCLUSION: This is an educational study, aiming to spread good medical practices, while also verifying their real effectiveness in a large number of ICUs. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT03438175.

[Talking about unspeakable: insights from patient-centered medicine to palliative paternalism.] / Comunicare l'indicibile: proposte dalla medicina centrata sul paziente al paternalismo palliativo.

The literature highlights the importance of involving the patient as a partner of care, using a patient-centered approach aimed at improving a process of share decision-making. However, there are clinical situations in which a shared decision-making process is difficult and its actual achievement is even more complex, as in the case of end-of-life decisions, in which a decision about death is a tremendous weight for both patients and their caregivers. In such situations, we wonder what kind of position physicians should assume in order to be patient-centered but also to reduce the patient suffering. Our proposal is to assume the perspective of palliative paternalism: doctors should provide a communication approach that determines the appropriate level of patient/parent autonomy in the process of decision making. In other words, doctors are required to share the information with patients, according to their desires, possibilities and resources, and to facilitate a share-decision making process. However, when the time of the decision comes, physicians should take full responsibility for giving voice to the patient's choices, putting them in action in his/her end of life and raising patients and their caregivers from the burden linked to the actual implementation of the decision.