Thesis Statement
Palliative care in Canada plays a key role in improving quality of life, ameliorating symptoms, lowering healthcare costs, and facilitating healthy bereavement.
Introduction
- Opening statements: The term palliative care refers to specialized medical care provided to seriously ill patients with the aim of relieving and managing symptoms, providing support to patients and their families, and improving the quality of life. The advancement in medicine and nursing and the importance of evidence-based practices influence the role of palliative care in Canada.
- Extended Thesis Statement: Palliative care is crucial to symptom and pain management in patients with serious illnesses and life-threatening conditions. It aims to improve the patient’s quality of life and ameliorate symptoms, reducing physical and mental distress. Other roles of palliative care in Canada include lowering healthcare costs and facilitating healthy bereavement.
Topic sentence: Improving quality of life is one of the major roles of palliative care.
- Evidence 1: Patient care impacts the quality of life and correlates with the professional behavior of medical staff in palliative care (Moran et al., 2021).
- Evidence 2: Patients “who received early palliative care had a better quality of life and survival” (Mittmann et al., 2020, p. 11).
Analysis
Health care professionals’ competency is essential to providing patient-centered palliative care aiming to improve quality of life. The findings of the study conducted by Mittmann et al. (2020) in Canada reveal that early palliative identification can benefit patients’ quality of life.
Concluding sentence: Quality of life is a concept central to palliative care services.
Ameliorating symptoms is another essential role of palliative care.
- Evidence 1: It is essential for palliative care professionals to ensure the availability of medications and medical equipment for pain control, whether it is a hospital or home setting (Danielsen et al., 2018).
- Evidence 2: Nurses play a particular role in symptom and pain management, as well as in supporting the mental health of patients (Connolly et al., 2021).
Analysis: Symptom management remains one of the central concepts of palliative care, comprising physical, social, psychological, and spiritual aspects of suffering and aiming at symptom relief.
Concluding sentence
Palliative care adopts a holistic approach to practices aiming to improve the patient’s mental and physical condition.
Lowering healthcare costs and facilitating healthy bereavement are essential roles of palliative care in Canada.
Healthcare cost remains one of the critical issues for patients with life-threatening conditions (Carvajal et al., 2019; Abu-Odah et al., 2020).
Family members are integral to palliative care, and providing bereavement support is critical to people dealing with a loss (Devik et al., 2015).
The cost-effectiveness of palliative care is critical for better patient outcomes. At the same time, the provision of palliative care does not end in case of the patient’s death, making bereavement support essential for families.
Palliative care involves various aspects, including the financial problem for patients and the need for bereavement support for families dealing with a loss.
Conclusion
Importance of research
Research on the role of palliative care in Canada is of particular importance as it improves the understanding of this service and its principles for patients and medical staff. Furthermore, defining the role of palliative care from a scientific perspective can address the misunderstandings and common beliefs regarding palliative services in the population.
Concluding statement
Palliative care is a multifaceted process that comprises several key roles aiming to provide care for people with life-threatening conditions. A team of professionals is involved in the provision of care for such patients based on the severity of the disease and the primary objectives of treatment.
References
Abu-Odah, H., Molassiotis, A., & Liu, J. (2020). Challenges on the provision of palliative care for patients with cancer in low-and middle-income countries: A systematic review of reviews. BMC Palliative Care, 19(1), 1-16. Web.
Carvajal, A., Haraldsdottir, E., Kroll, T., McCormack, B., Larkin, P., & Errasti-Ibarrondo, M. B. (2019). Barriers and facilitators perceived by registered nurses to providing person-centered care at the end of life. A scoping review. Web.
Connolly, M., Ryder, M., Frazer, K., Furlong, E., Escribano, T. P., Larkin, P., Carruthers, E., & McGuigan, E. (2021). Evaluating the specialist palliative care clinical nurse specialist role in an acute hospital setting: A mixed methods sequential explanatory study. BMC Palliative Care 20, 134 (2021). Web.
Danielsen, B. V., Sand, A. M., Rosland, J. H., & Førland, O. (2018). Experiences and challenges of home care nurses and general practitioners in home-based palliative care–a qualitative study. BMC Palliative Care, 17(1), 1-13. Web.
Devik, S. A., Hellzen, O., & Enmarker, I. (2015). “Picking up the pieces”—Meanings of receiving home nursing care when being old and living with advanced cancer in a rural area. International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-Being, 10(1), 28382. Web.
Mittmann, N., Liu, N., MacKinnon, M., Seung, S. J., Look Hong, N. J., Earle, C. C., Gradin, S., Sati, S., Buchman, S., Jakda, A., & Wright, F. C. (2020). Does early palliative identification improve the use of palliative care services? PloS One, 15(1), e0226597. Web.
Moran, S., Bailey, M., & Doody, O. (2021). An integrative review to identify how nurses practicing in inpatient specialist palliative care units uphold the values of nursing. BMC Palliative Care, 20(1), 1-16. Web.