Systemic sclerosis & Raynaud's
Quantifying the Need for Specialist Palliative Care Management in Patients With Systemic Sclerosis
Authors' conclusion
SSc is frequently associated with multiple severe symptoms that may be amenable to palliative care intervention.
Study context
- Population
- Patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc) enrolled in the Australian Scleroderma Cohort Study
- Participants
- 875 patients
- Outcome
- Need for specialist palliative care: high symptom burden at two or more consecutive study visits, at ≥50% of overall study visits, or at the study visit immediately before death
Methodological detailslogistic regression, linear regression
- Logistic regression
- Linear regression
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
Met threshold for specialist palliative care needs
Patients meeting threshold for specialist palliative care needs
72.69%
Observational data: associations, not effects.
Further findings
Prevalence of individual severe symptoms
- Severe fatigue (most common)
- 54.17%
- Breathlessness
- 23.66%
- Severe constipation
- 21.14%
- Concurrent severe symptoms frequently observed
Association of severe symptoms with physical quality of life (QoL) (linear regression coefficient)
- Severe breathlessness, coef
- −7.95, P < 0.01
- Severe pain, coef
- −7.70, P < 0.01
- Largest reductions in physical QoL
Association of severe mood symptoms with mental QoL (coefficient)
- Severe mood symptoms, coef
- −12.91, P < 0.01
- Greatest reduction in mental QoL
Association of severe symptoms with function (coefficient)
- Severe pain, coef
- 0.56, P < 0.01
- Breathlessness, coef
- 0.49, P < 0.01
- Mood symptoms, coef
- 0.40, P < 0.01
Original publication
Quantifying the Need for Specialist Palliative Care Management in Patients With Systemic Sclerosis. Arthritis Care Res (Hoboken). Published 15 May 2024. doi:10.
Composed by AI from the published abstract and checked against it. How Briefs are made →