Social Worker-Aided Palliative Care Intervention in High-risk Patients With Heart Failure (SWAP-HF): A Pilot Randomized Clinical Trial.

ABSTRACT:

Importance

Palliative care considerations are typically introduced late in the disease trajectory of patients with advanced heart failure (HF), and access to specialty-level palliative care may be limited.

Objective

To determine if early initiation of goals of care conversations by a palliative care-trained social worker would improve prognostic understanding, elicit advanced care preferences, and influence care plans for high-risk patients discharged after HF hospitalization.

Design, setting, and participants

This prospective, randomized clinical trial of a social worker-led palliative care intervention vs usual care analyzed patients recently hospitalized for management of acute HF who had risk factors for poor prognosis. Analyses were conducted by intention to trea

SUBMITTER: O'Donnell AE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6128511 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature