Troublesome Symptoms in Palliative Care

Background: One of the tasks of palliative nursing care is to identify the occurrence of aggravating symptoms that prevent achieving a reasonable quality of life. This topic is becoming more and more relevant, as the incidence of patients requiring this type of symptom care is on the increase. Methods: In order to provide effective and complex palliative nursing care, we need to assess the presence of symptoms and their severity by using assessment tools that are reliable, validated and grounded in evidence - based practice such as the Memorial Symptom Assessment Scale (MSAS). To identify particular areas of patients' lives, we used a specific tool to evaluate quality of life, WHOQOL-BREF, which we modified to reflect changes in the quality of life of palliative patients. The research sample consisted of 103 participants who were hospitalized at palliative care departments and hospices in the Slovak Republic. Results: The results of our research show that the symptom occurrence of patients in palliative nursing care directly correlates with the quality of their lives. Among the most common symptoms reported were: loss of appetite (n = 102 = 99%), weight loss (n = 101 = 98%) and pain (n = 97 = 94.2%). The least reported symptoms were dizziness (n = 31 = 30.1%), flatulence (n = 27 = 26.2%) and itching (n = 16 = 15.5 %). There is statistical confirmation of the significant differences in the occurrence of symptoms, their intensity and distress experienced relating to the type of diagnosis, the treatment chosen, marital status and frequency of visits by relatives/friends. There is no statistical confirmation of differences in the occurrence of symptoms, their intensity and distress experienced relating to gender, age and disease length. Conclusion: It is necessary to minimize symptoms in palliative care so that we ensure the highest quality of life for the patient.