Lack of Truth-Telling in Palliative Care and Its Effects among Nurses and Nursing Students.

Unclear communication of inauspicious prognoses may disorientate both patients and their relatives, drastically jeopardizing the planning of palliative care. This paper considers the issue of truth-telling in the communicative problems of nurses and students of nursing with terminally ill patients. The fundamental objective is the analysis of the difficulties related to the lack of truth-telling and how it might impact their professional and personal lives. A qualitative study was realized, involving 47 participants, both nurses (25) and nursing students (22), working in palliative care units or in associations of volunteers for the assistance of oncological patients. The exploration was focused on the way they relate to patients who are not aware of their real health conditions and their consequences. Particular attention was paid to their opinions concerning what could be done in order to manage such problematic situations in the near future.

[Effectiveness of IPD treatment for delirium prevention in hospitalized elderly. A controlled randomized clinical trial]. / Efficia del trattamento IPD per la prevenzione del delirium dell'anziano ospedalizzato. Sperimentazione clinica randomizzata e controllata.

Delirium is a common and serious complication for hospitalized elderly people. Early detection of risk and preventive treatment may significantly reduce delirium and its consequences. In Inouye's study of elderly people with delirium (1993), an interesting predictive model was proposed ,but never applied, for hospitalized elderly. The aim of this study was to test the effectiveness of IPD, a standardized package of caring activities, in the prevention of delirium in inpatient elderly The study consisted of an experimental controlled randomized trial with standardized treatment (Prevention of Delirium Interventions - IPD) with 30 subjects in the experimental group and 30 comparable subjects in the control group. Subjects were recruited if they obtained a score of 24 or less in the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE). All the subjects have been assessed on the first, second, fourth and seventh day of their hospital stay according to the MMSE, Barthel Index, Tinetti Balance and Gait Scale, Neecham Confusion Scale, and Delirium Rating Scale. The method of assessment was the Confusion Assessment protocol. There was a statistically and clinically significant reduction in both the risk of delirium and related events in the treatment group compared to the control. Therefore, the IPD model proved to be highly effective in comparison to traditional care for elderly inpatients.