Patient-Clinician Communication: American Society of Clinical Oncology Consensus Guideline.

Purpose To provide guidance to oncology clinicians on how to use effective communication to optimize the patient-clinician relationship, patient and clinician well-being, and family well-being. Methods ASCO convened a multidisciplinary panel of medical oncology, psychiatry, nursing, hospice and palliative medicine, communication skills, health disparities, and advocacy experts to produce recommendations. Guideline development involved a systematic review of the literature and a formal consensus process. The systematic review focused on guidelines, systematic reviews and meta-analyses, and randomized controlled trials published from 2006 through October 1, 2016. Results The systematic review included 47 publications. With the exception of clinician training in communication skills, evidence for many of the clinical questions was limited. Draft recommendations underwent two rounds of consensus voting before being finalized. Recommendations In addition to providing guidance regarding core communication skills and tasks that apply across the continuum of cancer care, recommendations address specific topics, such as discussion of goals of care and prognosis, treatment selection, end-of-life care, facilitating family involvement in care, and clinician training in communication skills. Recommendations are accompanied by suggested strategies for implementation. Additional information is available at www.asco.org/supportive-care-guidelines and www.asco.org/guidelineswiki .

Global efforts to improve palliative care: the International End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium Training Programme.

AIM: This paper is a report of an evaluation study to determine the feasibility and effectiveness of the End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium-International training conference in providing education and support materials to participants so they might return to their home countries and disseminate palliative care information. BACKGROUND: More than 50 million people die each year, many without access to adequate pain control or palliative care. Numerous barriers to implementation of palliative care exist, including lack of education provided to healthcare professionals regarding these principles. Because they spend the most time with patients and their families, nurses have the greatest potential to change the way palliative care is provided. METHOD: A Course Evaluation Form and a Postcourse Activity Evaluation was completed by a convenience sample of 38 nurses from 14 Eastern and Central European, former Soviet, and Central Asian countries. The data were collected in 2006 using Likert scales and open-ended questions. FINDINGS: Evaluations of speakers ranged from a mean of 4.4 to 4.9 on the 5-point scale, with five denoting the highest level. The mean rating of the conference overall was 4.9. Strengths included the professional level of presentations, practical, clinically based content, extensive resources and availability of the educators. CONCLUSION: The first End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium-International training programme demonstrated the feasibility of providing high-quality, essential education to nurses from a variety of countries. Because End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium is designed as a train-the-trainer programme, assistance with translation to native languages, along with textbooks and other resources, is needed to allow participants to fully implement this curriculum.