Management of symptoms, quality of life
evaluate whether the quality of palliative care (i.e.,
timely management of symptoms, quality of life, and overall satisfaction of care) provided to
adult patients with cancer improves after completion of the Edmonton Symptom Assessment
Scale (ESAS).
Instructors feedback:
Perhaps you need to go broader and assess whether early symptom assessment allows providers to provide more tailored care that addresses specific patient needs, thus leading to more positive patient outcomes. So, you would be broad in terms of type of patient, that is not just palliative care patients, but any patients experiencing an illness with pain symptoms.
Sample Solution
The Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale (ESAS) is a tool used to assess the severity and impact of pain symptoms experienced by patients with cancer. It allows providers to track changes in patient symptom levels over time and identify areas where further intervention or treatment may be necessary (LeBlanc et al., 2009). This can help healthcare professionals tailor their care plans to better meet patient needs, leading to improved quality of life, satisfaction with care, and overall timely management of symptoms (O’Connor et al., 2018).
Research has shown that early assessment using the ESAS is associated with improved palliative care outcomes for adult patients with cancer. Studies have found that the use of this scale leads to fewer missed diagnoses or delayed interventions due to insufficient information about symptom severity as well as increases in overall patient satisfaction through more tailored approaches towards managing pain symptoms (Lauzier et al., 2019; Novakovic et al., 2016).
In addition, earlier symptom assessment also helps reduce unnecessary trips to emergency departments since healthcare providers are aware of what type and intensity level of support may be needed at any given interval which reduces stress on limited resources available within these settings (Martinez-Gomez et al., 2020). Furthermore, early identification and management of symptoms can help prevent situations such as prolonged hospital stays which could otherwise put additional strain on already overtaxed healthcare systems due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Therefore it can be concluded that early assessment using the ESAS does indeed improve various aspects related to palliative care including but not limited timely management of symptoms; increased quality of life; increased patient satisfaction etc . However , further research should also consider other factors such as economic costs/benefits related from implementing this tool in order to provide a comprehensive understanding about its long term efficacy.
