Providing high quality care for dying patients and their families is very important. One way one can assess the care provided is to ask bereaved relatives to complete a questionnaire after their family member has died. The questionnaire can ask about their experiences and their thoughts about the care provided to their family member. One such questionnaire is the 'Care Of the Dying Evaluation' (or CODE). CODE has been developed with the help and support of bereaved relatives and has been used extensively within the United Kingdom. In this project the investigators want to use the CODE questionnaire to look at bereaved relatives' views about care provided in seven different countries within Europe and Latin America. In the first part of the project CODE was translated into the main language of each country. Volunteers and bereaved relatives in each country were asked to give feedback about whether CODE was easy to understand, sensitive, and easy to complete. Based on the feedback a common version of CODE that is suitable for use across all the countries was developed. In the next phase of the project, relatives who have recently experienced a bereavement where one of their family members has died from cancer in a hospital, will be invited to complete the CODE questionnaire about two months after the patient's death. The relatives may complete CODE on paper, using a computer, or by interview. The aim is to have 100 completed CODE questionnaires from each of the seven countries. The data from the questionnaires will be used to make a report on the current quality of care for dying cancer patients in hospitals across the seven countries. It will also be possible to compare the care between the countries and identify areas needing improvement. In the next phase of the project, health care professionals, researchers and bereaved relatives together will use their knowledge and experience to find effective ways to improve the weak areas identified, and assess the results of putting these changes into practice.
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AI-rewrites the medical criteria so a patient or caregiver can understand them. Always confirm with the trial site.
CODE (Care Of the Dying Evaluation) Questionnaire Item 30 Score for Relatives' Perception of How Much of the Time the Deceased Patient Was Treated With Dignity and Respect, by Nurses, and by Doctors
Timeframe: 6-8 weeks post bereavement
Number of Participants (Relatives) Answering "Yes" to CODE (Care Of the Dying Evaluation) Questionnaire Item 31: Were You Adequately Supported in the Patients' Last Days of Life?
Timeframe: 6-8 weeks post bereavement