The EAPC, The European Association for Palliative Care, will held its 17th World Congress next autumn. The meeting, that will be presented online due to the pandemic situation, will take place 6-8th October. The iLIVE Project will be present in this important forum presenting some of our results and data.
The Medication Study (WP2) is currently working on the publication of an abstract that will be published soon. This part of our research has developed a Delphi Study to reach to different colleagues to assess how the medication process is currently taking palce in different countries and sanitary systems.
The Medication Study is developing a tool to help doctors make adequate decisions regarding the use of medication, to avoid side effects and to deprescribe drugs when necessary. Part of this effort will work directly with the doctors to see how to make this future tool really useful, and to make it possible to integrate it in the daily work of physicians in palliative care wards.
The Volunteers Study will also present a communication for this important forum. In this case, the study focus on the training process for the new volunteers in the study. Work Package 3, tasked with the realization of this study works to develop and evaluate an international volunteer training programme to support patients dying in the hospital and their families.
The communication presented will show how an educational psychologist with international experience in training volunteers developed the training programme, based in Experiential Learning Theory (ELT). The programme covered the two sections of the ECC:
1. ECC-A: 10-Step Model for development and implementation of HPCV services into a highly structured context (hospital)
2. ECC-B: training curriculum for HPCV’s, including example training sessions and materials
Training included plenaries, small group work, guided reflections and participant presentations. Programme evaluation was gained through participant feedback.
The conclusions are positive as the programme provided a structured, theory-based approach, which facilitated understanding of the ECC, empowering VC’s to develop their own HPCV services, and train volunteers to support patients at the end of life. Recent challenges with COVID-19 will impact design and delivery of these services. iLIVE WP3 will evaluate these HPCV services in 5 countries.
The EAPC Congress will focus this year on 'New Dimensions'. In the words of Fliss Murtagh, chaior of the scientific committee, this topic will give the assistants "the opportunity to be re-energised; to hear about exciting innovations and progress from within our palliative care community, as well as valuable contributions from the wider services and communities with whom we work".
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