Clinician barriers and facilitators to heart failure advance care plans: a systematic literature review and qualitative evidence synthesis

Integrating Palliative Care and Heart Failure: the PalliatHeartSynthesis realist synthesis

Background

Cardiovascular disease is the most common cause of death worldwide, highlighting the need for studies to determine options for palliative care within the management of patients with heart failure. Although there are promising examples of integrated palliative care and heart failure interventions, there is heterogeneity in terms of countries, healthcare settings, multidisciplinary team delivery, modes of delivery and intervention components. Hence, this review is vital to identify what works, for whom and in what circumstances when integrating palliative care and heart failure.

Objectives

To (1) develop a programme theory of why, for whom and in what contexts desired outcomes occur; and (2) use the programme theory to co-produce with stakeholders key implications to inform best practice and future research.

Design

A realist review of the literature underpinned by the Realist and Meta-narrative Evidence Syntheses: Evolving Standards quality and reporting standards.

Data sources

Searches of bibliographic databases were conducted in November 2021 using the following databases: EMBASE, MEDLINE, PsycInfo, AMED, HMIC and CINAHL. Further relevant documents were identified via alerts and the stakeholder group.

Review methods

Realist review is a theory-orientated and explanatory approach to the synthesis of evidence. A realist synthesis was used to synthesise the evidence as successful implementation of integrated palliative care and heart failure depends on the context and people involved. The realist synthesis followed Pawson's five iterative stages: (1) locating existing theories; (2) searching for evidence; (3) document selection; (4) extracting and organising data; and (5) synthesising the evidence and drawing conclusions. We recruited an international stakeholder group (n = 32), including National Health Service management, healthcare professionals involved in the delivery of palliative care and heart failure, policy and community groups, plus members of the public and patients, to advise and give us feedback throughout the project, along with Health Education England to disseminate findings.

Results

In total, 1768 documents were identified, of which 1076 met the inclusion criteria. This was narrowed down to 130 included documents based on the programme theory and discussions with stakeholders. Our realist analysis developed and refined 6 overarching context-mechanism-outcome configurations and 30 sub context-mechanism-outcome configurations. The realist synthesis of the literature and stakeholder feedback helped uncover key intervention strategies most likely to support integration of palliative care into heart failure management. These included protected time for evidence-based palliative care education and choice of educational setting (e.g. online, face to face or hybrid), and the importance of increased awareness of the benefits of palliative care as key intervention strategies, the emotive and intellectual need for integrating palliative care and heart failure via credible champions, seeing direct patient benefit, and prioritising palliative care and heart failure guidelines in practice. The implications of our findings are further outlined in the capability, opportunity, motivation, behaviour model.

Limitations

The realist approach to analysis means that findings are based on our interpretation of the data.

Future work

Future work should use the implications to initiate and optimise palliative care in heart failure management.

Conclusion

Ongoing refinement of the programme theory at each stakeholder meeting allowed us to co-produce implications. These implications outline the required steps to ensure the core components and determinants of behaviour are in place so that all key players have the capacity, opportunity and motivation to integrate palliative care into heart failure management.

Study registration

This study is registered as PROSPERO CRD42021240185.

Funding

This award was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Health and Social Care Delivery Research programme (NIHR award ref: NIHR131800) and is published in full in Health and Social Care Delivery Research; Vol. 12, No. 34. See the NIHR Funding and Awards website for further award information.

Physicians' Perceived Barriers and Willingness to Initiate Advance Care Planning with Young Adults Living with Cardiometabolic Diseases

Objectives

The current global practice is to plan for the end-of-life period of persons already terminally ill with chronic diseases. However, affected persons should not have to wait till the stage of terminal illness to begin making plans for future healthcare preferences. This pilot study explored perceived barriers to and willingness of physicians to initiate discussions on advance care planning (ACP) with young adults living with cardiometabolic diseases.

Materials and Methods

The study was the pilot phase of descriptive cross-sectional research conducted among primary care physicians practising in Kuwait. Pilot data was collected with an electronic version of the modified DECIDE questionnaire (adapted from the "DECIsion-making about goals of care for hospitalized ElDErly patients" study) from February to April 2023. Data were analysed with Google Sheets.

Results

Nine out of 22 participants exited the study early on grounds of non-familiarity with the concept of ACP. Thirteen responses were analysed and reported herein. The mean age of the participants was 44.2 (±7.9) years; eight were male and five were female; five were Hindu, 7 Muslim, and 2 Christian. Perceived barriers to initiating ACP discussions included lack of knowledge about ACP and its relationship to ACP and goals of care discussions (8), lack of knowledge about the legal status of ACP documents in Kuwait (11), religious disapproval (12), lack of knowledge about how to elicit values, beliefs, preferences related to end-of-life care (13) and fear that these conversations will diminish hope in patients with serious illness (12), among others. Twelve participants were willing to initiate discussions and exchange information with young adult patients. Twelve participants indicated that they were confident about initiating discussions and exchanging ACP information, had all not taken any extra training or certification in ACP, but, respectively, described their current level of skill in having ACP discussions and supporting patients in the finalisation of their advance care plans as limited (2), fair (3), average (4), very good (3) and expert (1).

Conclusion

Despite the low level of awareness and other factors perceived as barriers, the primary care physicians who participated in the study were confident and willing to initiate ACP discussions with young adults living with cardiometabolic diseases. With the generally reported lack of previous training in ACP, there might be a need for coordinated efforts in training or up-skilling on knowledge and practice of ACP among primary care physicians.

Identificação de competências necessárias aos médicos da Atenção Primária à Saúde para a entrega de cuidados paliativos ao paciente com insuficiência cardíaca

Introdução: A insuficiência cardíaca (IC) tem prevalência crescente no mundo e já existe maior proporção de pacientes com essa doença necessitando de cuidados paliativos (CP) em relação a outras patologias, como o câncer. Apesar disso, há uma iniquidade na oferta e no reconhecimento da necessidade de CP nos indivíduos com IC. A identificação das competências necessárias para o médico que ofertará esse cuidado é essencial para a melhoria da atenção prestada a esses pacientes. Objetivo: Identificar, por meio de revisão da literatura, as competências requeridas aos médicos da atenção primária para oferecer cuidados paliativos aos pacientes com insuficiência cardíaca. Métodos: Foi utilizado o acrônimo SPIDER para a construção da pergunta e, com base nela, buscou-se identificar as competências necessárias para médicos da atenção primária à saúde na atuação em CP na IC. As bases buscadas foram United States National Library of Medicine (PubMed), Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO), Literatura Latino-Americana e do Caribe em Ciências da Saúde (Lilacs) e Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online (Medline), usando descritores e suas variações registradas, guiados pela pergunta. Nos estudos primários relevantes localizados pela estratégia de busca também se procurou por mais estudos elegíveis nos artigos citados. Resultados: De 127 estudos encontrados, oito foram selecionados para extração de dados e avaliados pela metodologia de síntese temática. A competência mais prevalente nos trabalhos selecionados foi a de ofertar CP ao paciente com IC em estágio avançado. Outras competências apontadas foram coordenar o cuidado e ofertar cuidado multidisciplinar ao paciente com IC. Conclusão: Esta revisão revelou conhecimentos e habilidades requeridos na formação do médico da APS para atingir as principais competências na promoção dos CP ao paciente com IC.

Front-Line Hospice Staff Perceptions of Barriers and Opportunities to Discussing Advance Care Planning With Hospice Patients and Their Families

OBJECTIVES

To understand the facilitators and barriers to hospice staff engagement of patients and surrogates in advance care planning (ACP) conversations.

DESIGN

Qualitative study conducted with purposive sampling and semistructured interviews using ATLAS.ti software to assist with template analysis.

SETTINGS AND PARTICIPANTS

Participants included 51 hospice professionals (31 clinicians, 13 leaders, and 7 quality improvement administrators) from 4 geographically distinct nonprofit US hospices serving more than 2700 people.

MEASURES

Interview domains were derived from the implementation science framework of Capability, Opportunity, Motivation, and Behavior (COM-B), with additional questions soliciting recommendations for behavior change. Differences in themes were reconciled by consensus. The facilitator, barrier, and recommendation themes were organized within the COM-B framework.

RESULTS

Capability was facilitated by interdisciplinary teamwork and specified clinical staff roles and inhibited by lack of self-perceived skill in engaging in ACP conversations. Opportunities for ACP occurred during admission to hospice, acute changes, or deterioration in patient condition. Opportunity-related environmental barriers included time constraints such as short patient stay in hospice and workload expectations that prevented clinicians from spending more time with patients and families. Motivation to discuss ACP was facilitated by the employee's goal of providing personalized, patient-centered care. Implicit assumptions about patients' and families' preferences reduced staff's motivation to engage in ACP. Hospice staff made recommendations to improve ACP discussions, including training and modeling practice sessions, earlier introduction of ACP concepts by clinicians in prehospice settings, and increasing workforce diversity to reflect the patient populations the organizations want to reach and cultural competency.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

Even hospice staff can be uncomfortable discussing death and dying. Yet staff were able to identify what worked well. Solutions to increase behavior of ACP engagement included staff training and modeling practice sessions, introducing ACP prior to hospice, and increasing workforce diversity to improve cultural competency.

Implementing advance care planning in heart failure: a qualitative study of primary healthcare professionals

Background

Advance care planning (ACP) can improve the quality of life of patients suffering from heart failure (HF). However, primary care healthcare professionals (HCPs) find ACP difficult to engage with and patient care remains suboptimal.

Aim

To explore the views of primary care HCPs on how to improve their engagement with ACP in HF.

Design and setting

A qualitative interview study with GPs and primary care nurses in England.

Method

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of 24 primary care HCPs. Data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis.

Results

Three main themes were constructed from the data: ACP as integral to holistic care in HF; potentially limiting factors to the doctor–patient relationship; and approaches to improve professional performance. Many HCPs saw the benefits of ACP as synonymous with providing holistic care and improving patients’ quality of life. However, some feared that initiating ACP could irrevocably damage their doctor–patient relationship. Their own fear of death and dying, a lack of disease-specific communication skills, and uncertainty about the right timing were significant barriers to ACP. To optimise their engagement with ACP in HF, HCPs recommended better clinician–patient dialogue through question prompts, enhanced shared decision-making approaches, synchronising ACP across medical specialties, and disease-specific training.

Conclusion

GPs and primary care nurses are vital to deliver ACP for patients suffering from HF. HCPs highlighted important areas to improve their practice and the urgent need for investigations into better clinician–patient engagement with ACP.

Palliative Care Conversations for Heart Failure Nurses: A Pilot Education Intervention

INTRODUCTION

Heart failure is a progressive condition affecting 6.2 million Americans. The use of palliative and supportive care for symptom management and improved quality of life is recommended for persons with heart failure. However, 91% of nurses believe they need further training to have palliative care conversations. The purpose of this pilot education intervention was to determine if providing nurses with education on the timing and content of palliative care conversations would improve their perceived skill and knowledge.

METHODS

This was a pilot study of an online educational intervention. Data were electronically collected from 13 participants using validated questionnaires delivered via Qualtrics. Participants completed a demographic survey and End-of-Life Professional Caregiver Survey (EPCS) before and after completing an online, asynchronous education module.

RESULTS

Mean scores were higher on all posttest measures. Independent samples t-tests revealed statistically significant differences on the Effective Care Delivery (ECD) scale (t[32] = -2, p = .05) and total EPCS scale scores (t[32] = -2.2, p = .03) from pre- to posttest.

CONCLUSION

Scores increased on all dimensions pretest to posttest with statistically significant differences in ECD and total scores. Providing asynchronous online education on timing and content of palliative care conversations to nurses caring for people with heart failure is a feasible and effective way to improve perceived knowledge and skill of palliative care conversations.

Characteristics for a tool for timely identification of palliative needs in heart failure: The views of Dutch patients, their families and healthcare professionals

BACKGROUND

Palliative care can improve outcomes for patients with advanced chronic heart failure and their families, but timely recognition of palliative care needs remains challenging.

AIM

The aim of this study was to identify characteristics of a tool to assess palliative care needs in chronic heart failure that are needed for successful implementation, according to patients, their family and healthcare professionals in The Netherlands.

METHODS

Explorative qualitative study, part of the project 'Identification of patients with HeARt failure with PC needs' (I-HARP), focus groups and individual interviews were held with healthcare professionals, patients with chronic heart failure, and family members. Data were analysed using the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research.

RESULTS

A total of 13 patients, 10 family members and 26 healthcare professionals participated. Direct-content analysis revealed desired tool characteristics for successful implementation in four constructs: relative advantage, adaptability, complexity, and design quality and packaging. Healthcare professionals indicated that a tool should increase awareness, understanding and knowledge concerning palliative care needs. A tool needs to: be adaptable to different disease stages, facilitate early identification of palliative care needs and ease open conversations about palliative care. The complexity of chronic heart failure should be considered in a personalized approach.

CONCLUSIONS

The current study revealed the characteristics of a tool for timely identification of palliative care needs in chronic heart failure needed for successful implementation. The next steps will be to define the content of the tool, followed by development of a preliminary version and iterative testing of this version by the different stakeholders.

Palliative care needs-assessment and measurement tools used in patients with heart failure: a systematic mixed-studies review with narrative synthesis

Patients with heart failure have comparable illness burden and palliative care needs to those with cancer. However, few of them are offered timely palliative care. One main barrier is the difficulty in identifying those who require palliative care. Several palliative care needs-assessment/measurement tools were used to help identify these patients and assess/measure their needs, but it is not known which one is the most appropriate for this population. This review aimed to identify the most appropriate palliative care needs-assessment/measurement tools for patients with heart failure. Cochrane Library, MEDLINE Complete, AMED, PsycINFO, CINAHL Complete, EMBASE, EThOS, websites of the identified tools, and references and citations of the included studies were searched from inception to 25 June 2020. Studies were included if they evaluated palliative care needs-assessment/measurement tools for heart failure populations in terms of development, psychometrics, or palliative care patient/needs identification. Twenty-seven papers were included regarding nineteen studies, most of which were quantitative and observational. Six tools were identified and compared according to their content and context of use, development, psychometrics, and clinical applications in identifying patients with palliative care needs. Despite limited evidence, the Needs Assessment Tool: Progressive Disease - Heart Failure (NAT:PD-HF) is the most appropriate palliative care needs-assessment tool for use in heart failure populations. It covers most of the patient needs and has the best psychometric properties and evidence of identification ability and appropriateness. Psychometric testing of the tools in patients with heart failure and evaluating the tools to identify those with palliative care needs require more investigation.

Implementing Automated Triggers to Identify Hospitalized Patients with Possible Unmet Palliative Needs: Assessing the Impact of This Systems Approach on Clinicians

Background: Understanding patients' goals and values is important to ensure goal-concordant care; however, such discussions can be challenging. Little is known about the impact of having these discussions on hospitalists. Objective: To assess the impact on hospitalists of a system that reminds them to have serious illness conversations with their patients identified with potential unmet palliative needs. Design: Two group cohort trial. Setting/Subjects: Single academic center. Internal medicine hospitalist physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician's assistants. Measurements: Before the trial, all participants received serious illness conversation training. During the trial, hospitalists on intervention units received verbal notification when their recently admitted patients were identified using a computer algorithm as having possible unmet palliative needs. Hospitalists on the control unit received no notifications. At baseline and three months, hospitalists completed questionnaires regarding communication skill acquisition, perception of the importance of these conversations, and sense of the meaning gained from having them. Results: Both groups had similar improvements in their self-reported communication skills and experienced a small decline in how important they felt the conversations were. Neither group perceived having the discussions as being affectively harmful to patients. The intervention hospitalists, over time, reported a slight reduction in the sense of meaning they achieved from the conversations. Conclusion: Routinely informing hospitalists when their patients were identified as being at increased risk for unmet palliative needs did not increase the sense of meaning these providers achieved. It is likely the pretrial training accounted for many of the positive outcomes in communication skills observed in both arms of the trial.

Implantable cardioverter defibrillators at the end of life: future perspectives on clinical practice

The implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) is effective in terminating life-threatening arrhythmias. However, in the last phase of life, ICD shocks may no longer be appropriate. Guidelines recommend timely discussion with the patient regarding deactivation of the shock function of the ICD. However, research shows that such conversations are scarce, and some patients experience avoidable and distressful shocks in the final days of life. Barriers such as physicians’ lack of time, difficulties in finding the right time to discuss ICD deactivation, patients’ reluctance to discuss the topic, and the fragmentation of care, which obscures responsibilities, prevent healthcare professionals from discussing this topic with the patient. In this point-of-view article, we argue that healthcare professionals who are involved in the care for ICD patients should be better educated on how to communicate with patients about ICD deactivation and the end of life. Optimal communication is needed to reduce the number of patients experiencing inappropriate and painful shocks in the terminal stage of their lives.