Medical News: Palliative Care Training Program Ineffective - in Geriatrics, Pain Management from MedPage Today

The primary outcome was family satisfaction with the death of the loved one and secondary outcomes included nurse satisfaction with the care, time in ICU before death, and time to withdrawal of ventilation.
But, the researchers found, there was no effect:

• Family satisfaction was not significantly different, either between active and control hospitals or before and after the training program within each institution.
• Nurse satisfaction did not differ in either case.
• Days in the ICU before death increased slightly in the active hospitals, but did not reach significance (at P=0.07).
• Time to withdrawal of mechanical ventilation, when it was used, did not change.

"We asked whether this intervention could improve families' experience with the death of their loved one in the ICU," Curtis said, "and the answer was no."