Longitudinal Evaluation of Palliative Care Outcomes

Demographic/clinical information for patient participants at baseline included age, gender, ethnicity, marital status, if living alone, presence/absence of family caregiver(s), performance status using Australia-modified Karnofsky Performance Status (AKPS),^{26 (link)} and primary diagnosis.
Data (see Table 1 for data collection measures) were collected at two time-points; 2–5 days apart within in-patient settings, and 7–21 days apart in community settings. For patient participants, IPOS (patient version, 3-day recall period), Edmonton Symptom Assessment System–revised (ESASr)^{30 (link)–32 (link, link)} and the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-General (FACT-G)^{33 (link)} were collected at first time-point, and IPOS (patient-version) and global change question (see Table 1)^{34 (link),40 (link)} were collected at the second time-point. For staff participants, the staff-version of IPOS, the Support Team Assessment Schedule (STAS),^{41 (link)} AKPS^{26 (link)} and Phase of Illness^{38 (link)} were collected at the first time point, and IPOS (staff-version), AKPS, and Phase of Illness were collected at the second time point.