Early Palliative Care Improves Patients^ Quality of Life : A Literature e Review
Agis Taufik, Nuriya Nuriya, Akhyarul Anam

university of jenderal soedirman

Abstract

Patients with terminal illnesses experience various physical problems such as pain, shortness of breath, weight loss, activity disturbances, as well as psychosocial and spiritual disorders that affect the quality of life of the patient and his family. Most patients are found at an advanced stage. Palliative care is the management of chronic diseases that does not only focus on the treatment of physical symptoms but also focuses on supporting psychological, social and spiritual needs carried out with an interdisciplinary scientific approach. Patients who experience various physical disorders such as pain, shortness of breath, weight loss, disruption of activity but also experiencing psychosocial and spiritual disorders, this greatly affects the patient^s quality of life. The aim of this study was to identify articles on the effectiveness of early palliative care in improving quality of life patient.
This study used six steps, namely formulating research questions and objectives, searching for existing literature, filtering according to inclusion criteria, assessing the quality of articles, extracting data, and analyzing data. Articles retrieved from the Google Scholar database, Ebsco, Proquest are bilingual. The keywords we use are ^Early Palliative Care, Early Palliative Care, Quality of Life^. 1453 articles were found, and only 10 articles that met the inclusion criteria were included in the analysis.
The results of the literature review show that terminal disease patients who receive Early Palliative Care, are admitted to the intensive care unit, inpatient and outpatient, have a better quality of life than patients who do not receive EPC. The difference between EPC and standard palliative care is when initiating treatment and the intensity of the palliative nurse^s visits with the patient and family. Treatment that can be categorized as EPC is palliative care that is started at least 3 months before the patient is sentenced to death.

Keywords: Key words: Early Palliative Care- EPC- Quality of life- End of Life

Topic: Mental Health, Community, Family Health and Gerontological Nursing