Sara L. Douglas, PhD, RN

Researchers exam­ined whether there were differences in resource use at end of life between patients with advanced cancer who identified goals of care focused heavily upon survival versus those who identified goals of care heavily focused on quality of life.

Family caregiver satisfaction with end-of-life care is key to better understanding patient experiences.

An ongoing study found some differences by ethnicity regarding the importance of factors influencing treatment decisions at end of life, which reinforces the need for EOL communication to be tailored.

A new study funded by the National Institutes of Health (NRO14856), "Factors Influencing Cancer Care Decisions," is currently underway at the Frances Payne Bolton (FPB) School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) and the Seidman Cancer Center at Case Medical Center. The study focuses on the complex practice of shared decision-making in advanced cancer patients.

Sara L. Douglas, PhD, RN, associate professor, Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing, Case Western Reserve University, discusses the importance of focusing on the caregiver of a patient with cancer.

Registries, large databases of patient information collected in a systematic, standardized fashion, most often focus on biologic measures, such as pathology, radiology, and laboratory results, to track incidence and prevalence of disease as well as causative factors.